


Gray

by LitGal



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Supernatural
Genre: Crossover, Dom/sub, Gen, Light Bondage, M/M, Monsters, multifandom - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-10
Updated: 2013-10-10
Packaged: 2017-12-18 09:10:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 42
Words: 109,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/878126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LitGal/pseuds/LitGal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Xander finds himself pulled into a new universe with a crazy woman who decides that she wants him to father a new race of monsters. Eve has seen the Winchester brothers destroy most of her children, and poisoned by phoenix ash, she can't make new ones. So she picks a warrior with darkness in his heart and tries to convince him to become her newest alpha--a child capable of fathering a new race of monsters.</p><p>While Xander tries to avoid pissing off demonic women, he doesn't plan to help her repopulate the Supernatural universe with children.  He may not get much choice though because she has put him on the path toward monsterdom. When Spike shows up, he's Xander's last chance at controlling this freight train to disaster.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

1\. Where Xander meets Eve

 

Xander stirred, the ground damp under his side. He had a definite ache going, but he couldn’t quite pinpoint the source. So far it felt like everything ached, which generally meant either an Armageddon or drinking with Spike. With a groan, he opened his eye. Woods. He was in the woods. This was definitely new because when Spike got him drunk and dropped him somewhere as a joke, it was usually in the middle of some city. Last time, Xander had woken in Belgrade. Xander didn’t even know what country Belgrade was in. However, dragging Xander’s sad ass out to the country wasn’t Spike’s style. It wasn’t anyone’s style, actually.

Startled, Xander sat up when he spotted the woman watching him. She crouched at the foot of an old oak looking young and curious. When he made eye contact, she gave him a fond expression that made Xander question her humanity. Human women never liked him on first sight. “Hey. Hi,” he started. “Um, where am I?”

“Purgatory,” the woman said. Her dark hair hung around her shoulders and she had this sweet face, and Xander was totally not buying it. Girls who looked that sweet were generally terrifying. Like Willow… or Buffy. Objectively, they looked sweet. Realistically, they were both powerful enough to frighten the socks off most living creatures.

“Purgatory? I got lost and landed in purgatory?”

“I needed you.”

And that would be trouble. When women needed Xander, badness followed. It was a rule. “Um, for what? And it’s not that I’m unhelpful, but I pretty much need to get home.” Standing up, Xander started backing away from the crazy lady. “You know, Watcher house, slayers, witches, that sort of thing. They definitely need me.” Xander dug in a pocket for his cell phone, but when he opened it, the screen was dead. That wasn’t possible because Willow had mojoed his phone into never dying. Only it was dead.

“This is purgatory. The witch’s toy will not work,” the woman said in that same saccharine voice. “Are you worthy?”

“Probably not,” Xander said. His gut was pretty much tangled into a big old knot because this woman was starting to give him an Anya vibe, and not the sweet almost-human vibe of late Anya, but more that ‘I am all powerful and I know it’ vibe she had right after losing her amulet.

The woman cocked her head at him. “I believe you are.”

“I…” Xander didn’t get any farther because a monster ran out from behind a tree, screaming. With a mouth full of teeth and a huge machete, he definitely wasn’t looking for a friend. With a squeal, Xander turned and fled.

Darting between trees, Xander called out Willow’s name and touched the tattoo at the base of his neck that was supposed to be some sort of homing signal, but either the homing part of the homing signal was broken or the girl was right about purgatory. Given Xander’s luck, it was possible.

A new monster came out from behind a clump of tall bushes, and Xander yelped as he tried to brake in the loose leaf litter. He ended up slipping and tumbling to the ground, and the momentum took him right into toothy attacker number two. Hands scrambled at him, and Xander drove his head back into the soft nose of his enemy. The satisfying crunch and spray of blood suggested that the maneuver had worked, and Xander scrambled to get away. Unfortunately, this guy didn’t give up as easy as Spike did during training. By now Spike would have been all “bloody hell” this and “you soddin’ little wanker” that. This guy clung to Xander’s coat.

Spinning around, Xander found the first attacker closing in, and attacker number two still had a hold on his jacket. “Shit, shit, shit, shit,” he muttered. Jerking back hard, he used his own momentum to pull attacker number two to his feet right as attacker number one reached them. Both attackers went down in a pile of uncoordinated limbs, and Xander grabbed the machete that got dropped in the melee.

He brought the machete down on one neck and then the other. “Ewwww.” He said as the bodies bled instead of turning to ash. Whatever these guys were, they weren’t vamps. Well, the mouth full of piranha teeth already told him that, but still… self-destructing vampire bodies were definitely a plus when you didn’t know what country you were in. Some countries were very cranky about tourists leaving decapitated bodies behind. Like Togo. The Togolese Republic was completely irrational about random decapitated bodies.

Xander whirled around to find the girl standing a couple of feet from him. “I am not fooled, you know. I know you’re something big and scary, and I am not afraid of beheading you,” he warned.

“Yes, you are.”

“Okay, so I am, but I’ll still do it.”

She lowered her head and gave him an amused look. “No, you won’t.”

“Okay, that’s annoying,” Xander said as he realized she was right. He couldn’t attack her when she looked so harmless. “Look, just tell me where I am and how to get home.”

“You are home,” she said with another creepy smile. “This is purgatory.”

“Purgatory as in dead?” Xander really hoped he wasn’t dead. If he died and ended up in the same place as toothy monsters, he had definitely done something wrong in life.

“As in the place where monsters wait for the world to end,” the woman corrected him.

“Oh boy.” Xander looked around, but other than the two headless monster bodies, the place didn’t look like home to monsters. It looked a little like Canada. “And you would be…”

She smiled. “I am Eve. Tiamat. Echidna. Lilith. I am first.”

Blinking, Xander tried to place that string of names. Eve—first woman. Tiamat—the monster who gave birth to all monsters. Echidna—some spider thing. Maybe. And there was one name in there Xander definitely knew. “And please let that not mean the first as in First evil because we already fought that and won.”

“You only exiled the darkness. It still waits.”

Xander froze as he looked around. “It waits here?” Xander wondered if he could have a heart attack if he was already dead, because he was feeling like he might.

“This is not his universe.”

“Hey, as long as it waits far, far away, that’s fine. And given your use of third person when discussing the First, either you’re not it or you’re feeling very royal.”

She smiled at him like he’d just offered her the last chocolate in a house full of premenstrual slayers. “I am queen of the damned, mother of those children which God has forgotten. I am Eve”

And that was not what Xander had been expecting. Usually he attracted evil rather than bat-shit crazy, well, with the one exception of Drusilla who was both evil and bat-shit crazy. And if this woman was in the same category with Drusilla, Xander was so totally screwed. “Hey, I am never in favor of abandoning your children. Bad God. Bad, bad God.” Xander started backing away from the crazy woman.

Eve followed him, her long white dress dragging through the leaves. “Exactly. I knew you would understand. You have such beautiful darkness in your heart. Darkness and loyalty stain your soul.”

Xander’s back hit a tree, and before he could detour around it, Eve was right there in his face, her hands on either of his arms, pinning them to his sides, and she was much stronger than she looked.

Despite his pounding heart, Xander tried to keep focused. “Okay, what exactly are the chances of me getting out of this alive?”

She smiled. “I would not kill you.”

“And weirdly, that’s not sounding reassuring.”

“Phoenix ash has stolen my ability to have children. I love my children, and I want only the best for them.” She reached up and ran her fingers along the side of Xander's face and then down to his neck.

“Oh god.” Xander felt a shiver go up his spine. Why did monsters always pick him? Okay, maybe always was a slight exaggeration, but when a monster picked you to mate with more than once, you had a right to get a little paranoid. “Look, I am not really father material. If you want, I could give you the name of a good vampire. He loves all the crazy chicks. Loves them, really.”

Eve’s fingers tightened against Xander’s arms and she looked at him sadly. “I would have your children if I could, only the poison that runs through me won’t allow it. So I shall have to choose my children rather than giving birth to them.”

“Wait. Are you trying to adopt me? Really?” Eve tilted her head at him, clearly confused. “Because I already have parents. I mean, yeah, they’re crappy parents, but what can you do?” Xander asked with a goofy grin.

“I would never leave my children. I listen to their every prayer. I love every one of them,” she said with that same scary-fond look as she backed away from him.

Xander was so distracted that for a second, he didn’t register the slight chill in the air on his blind side. A dark streak of smoke from the sky seemed to hit the ground and a woman in a black suit rose up in that spot. “Oh shit.” Swinging his machete, Xander thought he’d won the fight before it started, only the machete cut through the creature’s shoulder without slowing it down. This new woman in black looked at him with a wild-eyed sort of anger and then her mouth opened and opened and opened and Xander got a view of lots of teeth.

“Shit.” Xander turned to dash away. The woman reached for him, grabbing his coat, and Xander was starting to think that wearing anything loose was a very bad idea here. He took off her arm with one slice of the machete, but the damn thing held onto him even after being separated from the body. “Feel free to help,” Xander yelled to Eve.

“Do you seek my help?” she asked.

Xander had more sense than that. Asking for help meant paying a price, and Xander wasn’t going to do that. Darting around a tree, he took another swing at the black-suited woman, and missed. After years of sparring with Spike, Xander had learned one thing: as the weaker species, he had to strike and run. So he ran.

By the third tree, Xander was tiring. However, every wound he inflicted seemed to heal immediately. The damn woman had even regrown an arm. Xander could feel panic starting to rise, and he imagined Spike calling him a moron for wearing himself out. What would Spike do? Spike wouldn’t get in this spot, but if he were in this much trouble, he’d do something wild and unpredictable and completely stupid. Xander knew he had one chance. He just didn’t like even contemplating it. He’d tried the maneuver once, and it had only worked because he’d been fighting Spike, and Spike wasn’t actually trying to kill him. Usually.

After using his fourth tree as a shield, Xander gave in to the inevitable. Slipping on the loose leaves, he dropped the machete, making a show out of clumsily sending it flying up and to the right. The throw looked impressive, but if Xander timed it right, it would leave his weapon close at hand. And hopefully Xander wouldn’t cut his own hand off by misjudging the fall.

With a triumphant roar, the woman in black charged him, taking Xander to the ground in a rather inelegant tackle. The machete landed inches from them, and Xander grabbed it and lopped the woman’s head off. Her body collapsed on top of him and oozed black blood.

Panting, Xander shoved the creature off him.

“Okay, what the hell is going on?”

Eve immediately crouched down next to him. “You have gifts. You have to embrace them. In battle, we find our power and sharpen our claws. To be my child, you must find your power. Only then can you be the Alpha I need.”

Xander rolled to his side and wearily got to his feet. “Okay, that’s… that’s just confusing. Look, I’m not the brightest, so you have to use really small words and explain this.” Xander held up a finger and thumb to show just how tiny those words needed to be.

“I cannot have children, but you come with your own power, your own darkness. Magic has touched you, so you have no need of my power, only my love.” Eve moved closer, and Xander jerked back, but once again a tree was at his back. This time, Xander knew he hadn’t been that close to a tree, so this woman had the power to move trees. Either that or the trees weren’t trees, and she was screwing with his head. The result was the same: he found himself pinned between the tree and her.

“Every prey needs a predator. Every predator needs prey. The world was in balance. Monsters stalked the human pack; hunters stalked the monsters. Balance.”

Xander stopped breathing, and it took him a few second to realize he didn’t actually feel any need to start breathing again. Dead was definitely an option that was gaining some traction.

“Now there is no balance. The human pack has no predators.”

“Um, I’m kinda thinking that’s good,” Xander pointed out.

“They annoy you. They are weak,” Eve told him, her hand coming up to stroke his cheek. For a second, Xander considered swinging his machete at her, but he suspected that wouldn’t end well for him. “They wait for you to save them, and you are so tired of their inability to save themselves. They mewl like children, refusing to do what you did at fifteen.”

Xander swallowed, really not liking the direction this conversation was taking. Worse, he didn’t like that Eve seemed to know him better than he really wanted random baddies of the week to know him.

“You remember the hunt, the smell of blood, the surety of strength. You know the feel of power running through your veins, and you remember seeing their weakness, hating their weakness, wanting to cut the weakness out of the herd.” She was giving him a look that he could only describe as loving, and Xander was definitely starting to feel panic.

“If you’re talking about what I think you’re talking about, that was the hyena, not me. I’m not really one for cutting the weakness out of the herd. I’m more the kind that is weak, and please don’t take that as an invitation to kill me.”

Eve stroked her hand over his cheek and then slipped her fingers under the strap of his eye patch, pushing it up and over. The air felt odd against the skin around his missing eye because he usually kept it covered. However, Xander was starting to think Eve could pretty much do what she wanted and he wouldn’t argue. At this point arguing felt like a good way to end up dead.

Eve offered him a brilliant smile. “You killed a Leviathan. Unarmed, you took out two of my children.”

Xander glanced over at the first two bodies he’d decapitated. “Um, I’m sorry?”

She trailed her fingers over Xander’s neck. “I loved them. I still do. But weak cannot survive. I shall love them even as their power rejoins the nebulous energies of purgatory. They will return in another form, and I will still love them as I love all my children. Unlike God, I never abandon my creatures. I never forget them and leave them alone. You know what it feels like to be alone… to be forgotten.”

Her voice took on a sing-song quality that Xander could feel in his bones. “You are my child, Xander. From the time the First looked on you, I whispered to him that you were mine. He could consume that universe, but I would find a way to bring you to my universe. You will be my son, my beloved, my Alpha. You will father a new race of my children to hunt upon the earth, and you will grow in the light of my love.”

Xander blinked, his head fuzzy, filled with the weight of her words. “Alpha?”

“Each of my children is an alpha, a progenitor to found a new race of monsters. You will take your place as the founder of a new race, a new monster that will hunt the weak.”

Xander tried to push her away, but he couldn’t budge her. “I’m not a monster.”

“That is one choice.” Eve smiled. “You have the magic, and only you can decide how it will manifest. What powers will you claim? How will you choose your children?” Eve started to back up. “Only you may choose. As your mother, I can only set free the power within you. You must choose your path.”

Eve turned, and Xander saw a dirt trail appear out of nowhere. The narrow path led up to a rock point where the air shimmered and reality seemed to bulge.

“The doorway is for humans. Remain here too long, and you will not be human any longer, Xander Harris. Go. Explore your new universe, my child. When your powers break free, you will know how to best serve your mother, but know you carry my love forever.”

Xander felt a flash of warmth through him, a fire that washed out all feelings except for an intense desire to curl up in Eve’s lap and let her hold him. Some distant voice warned that he was being majorly mojoed, but Xander couldn’t stop himself. He was so alone and so tired, and Eve stood there and opened her arms, and Xander moved into them. Laying his head on her shoulder, he let her gently stroke his hair. “My beautiful Alpha. You shall make children with such power. The magic of your universe runs through your veins so strongly. You will serve your mother, and I will love you through all eternity.”

The words wrapped around him, caressing him, and Xander felt all his fears fade to nothing as her arms kept him safe. “I want to stay with you,” he whispered.

“One day, my beautiful boy. First you must give me grandchildren. Go.” She urged him toward that shimmering point, and Xander started walking up the path. Threads seemed to tie him to Eve, and with every step, he felt the strain of losing her, of leaving her.

When he felt the pull of the doorway, he turned to see Eve looking at him with a smile, and then the vortex yanked him out of purgatory. Winds slammed him, and Xander gripped the machete tightly as he was tossed from one side to another before he finally slammed down hard on the ground. Both knees seemed to find rocks, and Xander sucked oxygen into his starved lungs.

“Well shit,” Xander cursed. Eve had definitely mojoed him.

Rubbing his hand over his face, Xander realized something else—she’d given him his eye back. “Double shit with a shit cherry on top,” Xander muttered. Those kinds of gifts always came with strings, and Xander could almost feel the strings with this one. Pulling out his phone, Xander check to see if Willow’s mojo was back on track, but the screen was still dead, and the tiny tattooed dot on his neck didn’t warm to the touch when he tried to magically call her. Xander was officially on his own.

Since he didn’t have anything else he could do, Xander pushed himself to his feet, picked a direction, and started walking. He had definitely been shanghaied. Now he just needed to figure out the big questions—why, where, and how the hell did he get back home.


	2. When in Rome, figure out where the demons are

The semi slowed as it approached, and Xander turned to watch the driver. This was a mostly deserted part of the countryside, and Xander felt a little like the star in a horror movie of the week. Then again, he’d just been adopted by the mother of all monsters, so he wasn’t sure he was the redshirt slated to die… not anymore. Actually, he’d rather die that turn into some monster that ate humans, and Eve said it was his choice, so he was choosing “no” on the people-eating monster front.

Xander waved as the driver steered his rig toward the shoulder. The truck overshot, and Xander was showered with pebbles before it finally stopped with a wail of brakes. Xander trotted toward the passenger side.

“Hey, thanks for the ride,” Xander said as he pulled the door open.

“No problem. You’re a little out of the way here.” The guy had on a flannel shirt and worn jeans that made him look like some stereotype of a farmer, but he his beer gut definitely came from sitting still all day.

“I got dropped here under less than voluntary circumstances.”

The driver eyed him. “Girl trouble?”

“I would say yes, only the girls who seem to have trouble with me never liked to be called girls, so I think it’s woman trouble.”

The trucker snorted. “Yep, that’s women for ya. Hop on up.”

Xander climbed up into the seat. The guy spoke English, so that was a good sign. Xander had a few basic words in Chichewa, Hausa and Songhay, but he doubted that knowing how to ask for the location of young girls in tribal languages would be much help. Well, it might help him land in prison, but been there, done that.

The trucker shoved his truck into gear and they started rolling down the highway again. The truck looked remarkably truck-like, so if this was a different universe, it wasn’t all that different. “Where are you heading?” The guy asked.

“Um… anywhere Eve isn’t?” Xander guessed.

The guy laughed. “That’s a good answer. You really pissed her off, huh? Whad’ya do?”

“Breathe… I think.”

The guy shook his head and chuckled. “Burg Garfield,” he said, holding out his right hand while steering with the left.

“Alexander Harris,” Xander offered. Xander was an odd enough name in his own universe… everyone always asked if he was Dutch. He really didn’t want to do anything that would make him stand out, not until he…. Xander’s imagination failed him. He didn’t know what he would do. Panic and flail was an option, but he’d save that in reserve. Plan one involved staying alive and out of jail while Willow fixed whatever had gone wonky.

“So, what’s your line of work, Harris?”

“Uh, construction, mostly,” Xander improvised. He hadn’t done much construction since losing the eye, but trying to explain that he’d been travelling through Africa in search of slayers while getting intermittently shit-faced drunk on local moonshine and mourning the death of his ex-demon ex-fiancée seemed a little much to tell someone on the first day.

“You look like a man who works for his money.”

“Yeah,” Xander said weakly. Giles and the Council money kept flowing into Xander’s account whether he worked or not, so he wasn’t sure if that was true. Xander froze. Shit.

Not more than a week earlier he’d told the girls to stop hovering… that he was an adult with a right to drink himself stupider from time to time. And Xander was the first person to admit that he could be a total shit when he lost his temper, and he’d definitely lost his temper with all their hovering. They weren’t parentals, yet they nagged him more than either of his actual parents. He really hoped they didn’t take him at his word because when Willow got her feelings hurt, she could get a good pout on, and a pouting Willow might not look for him for weeks.

“Between jobs? With this economy, I’m not surprised. I’m telling you, between the economy and all the weird shit in the last few years, working men don’t really have a chance.”

“Weird shit?” Xander’s ears perked up. That didn’t sound good.

“Where the hell have you been? I mean, this stuff even hit the main news channels.” Garfield looked over like Xander might be a slime demon. “You’d have to live under a rock to not have heard some of this shit.”

“Um, I’ve been in the woods,” Xander said, poking a thumb toward the trees, trees, and more trees out the window.

“A survivalist type, then?” And he sounded weirdly okay with that thought. Most people considered the ‘live off the grid’ sorts sort of odd, but Garfield was nodding again, clearly approving of the choice. “Trying to ride out the apocalypse, were ya?”

Xander’s heart skipped a little. What the hell was it with him and apocalypses? Trying to keep the emotion off his face, Xander said, “It seemed safer than sticking around. I mean, Eve and I were hearing all sorts of things on the less than official channels.” Xander offered one of his harmless smiles, and surprising it worked.

“No joke.” Garfield seemed to relax back into his seat, but Xander eyed the cab. A broken baseball bat with the jagged end of raw wood was shoved into the driver’s side door, a rosary hung from the mirror, and now that Xander was paying attention, the knife in the guy’s belt looked suspiciously like silver. When truck drivers started carrying supernatural weapons, you knew the universe sucked. But Eve had said that her monsters were dead… that she was poisoned. And that made it sound like the good guys had won. Yeah, something was weird.

“So, what sent you running into the woods?” Garfield asked as casually as someone might comment on a baseball game. Hey, how are the Mets doing? Do you think the Yankees will win this week? Which sign of the apocalypse really worried you? Yeah, this universe was all kinds of screwed up.

Xander chose an appropriately generic sign of the apocalypse. “The earthquake.” He tried to school his face into something suitably sad as he nodded his head.

“You’re lucky. You missed the real fun.”

“Like?” Xander’s stomach was tying itself into sheep shank knots.

“A big chunk of the west is blackened stumps. There are whole towns gone. Of course they say that in Russia, there were places where they couldn’t get the people out of the towns before they burned, so I don’t suppose Colorado has too much to complain about. And then there’s the way whole areas got sick and died. And they say,” Garfield lowered his voice, “that there’s a mass grave outside Carthage, Missouri and a big chunk of the town got dumped in it.”

The knot in Xander’s guts tightened. “Shit.”

“That’s one way to put it,” Garfield said. “You took off at the right time, but if your Eve is holding the fort in some well-stocked cabin, you might want to consider making up with the missus. I mean, it seems like a lot of this stuff is settling down, but it feels a little like the other shoe is waiting to drop.”

“Oh yeah, shoe droppage. That’s my luck to walk in as the other shoe is dropping.”

Garfield gave him another odd look. “Have some bad luck in your past, do ya? You look the sort.”

“The sort?” Xander really wasn’t sure he wanted to hear what sort he looked like. He’d been kidnapped, dropped in purgatory, mojoed, and then dumped in the middle of the woods and left to walk until his feet hurt and his pits smelled.

“Been to prison?”

“Um, not in the States.”

The guy laughed again, and oddly, he looked more relaxed. “Good answer.”

“I’m glad you approve.” Xander stared at the guy, suddenly not so sure how normal he was. Or even which side he might be on. Fighting demons didn’t automatically make you a good guy.

Xander had met a few shamans and chiefs who were big on the demon fighting and also big on the evil asshole scale. As Xander stared at Garfield, shadows started to swirl around him. Arms, drifting over Garfield’s form. A woman’s arm floated in front of him, and Xander sucked in a breath and jerked back. The smoke scattered, and the images vanished like fog.

“Hey, you’re not stoned, are you?” Garfield asked.

“Definitely not,” Xander assured the guy, and he tried really hard to not look at him.

“I don’t want crack-heads in my cab.”

“I don’t want crack in my head. Honestly, me and drugs—not a good combination. I get silly and I say things and then bad stuff happens. Alcohol is my vice of choice.” Xander carefully stared out the front window.

Garfield grunted, and out of the corner of his eye, Xander could see him reach for the baseball bat. Scooting a little closer to the door, Xander started calculating distances and the likelihood that he’d be broken to little tiny bits if he tried to jump out of a moving truck. “So, what’s the next town you’re stopping in?” Xander asked as brightly as he could. Please just let him get off at the next stop, and he would never talk to this guy again. And he really didn’t want to look at the guy again because the ghost arms were freaky to a level that Xander just did not want to deal with.

Garfield didn’t answer right away, and the silence dragged on until the discomfort made Xander want to squirm. He had to work at staying still. “I usually fill up at Bangor. You can catch another ride from there.”

“Bangor. Bangor, Maine. Home of Stephen King… or near home, anyway. He lived in one of the towns around there.” A town infected with ghosts and at least one angry Indian god intent on revenge, and Giles was pretty sure that at least some of his books were documentary.

“Who’s that?”

“A horror writer,” Xander said, and suddenly he wasn’t sure King was a horror writer in this world because how could someone not know Stephen King? If you were alive in the nineties, you pretty much tripped over him every time you went to the bookstore or the movies. And while Xander typically avoided bookstores, he still knew the guy.

“Never heard of him. Have you read Carver Edlund’s stuff?”

“Carver Edlund?”

Garfield seemed to be warming up to his topic a little, which was good because his hand inched away from that broken bat. “Yep. He wrote a whole series of books about two demon hunting brothers. They’re fated to be some lynchpin in the apocalypse, only they’re more about taking care of each other than fighting any world-ending demons. They go around the country, steal what they need, lie to the authorities, and kill demons… and they get a fair amount of tail in the process. The one brother even fucks a demon girl while the other brother’s in hell.”

“That sounds…” That sounded awful. Being the chosen always sucked, but if they were demon hunters, sleeping with a demon didn’t sound good, and Xander did realize that he was being a little hypocritical because the love of his life had cursed men’s genitals for a thousand years, but he’d loved her during her ex-demony period. “Interesting,” Xander finally finished.

“They’re not for everyone,” Garfield said. And with that, the conversation appeared to have died. At least it was the conversation and not Xander that died, so Xander was perfectly willing to stare out the window and pray for them to get to Bangor faster.

The truck rolled past old weathered houses and trees and streams and trees and a few gas stations that Xander had seen in old horror films and more trees, trees, and trees until houses and stations started to dot the side of the highway. Shacks and cabins gave way to homes with white siding and truly ugly shutter colors until the empty land gave way to a pale imitation of a city. Oh it had lots of buildings, but they weren’t exactly up to city quality. Either they were in a crappy part of Bangor or Bangor was a pretty crappy little place.

Garfield pulled his truck into a station, and Xander tensed, ready to jump out if Garfield showed any interest in staking him. While he wasn’t a vampire, staking would still prove remarkable effective at killing him. However, as the truck slowed and finally inched toward the pumps, Garfield seemed more interested in not hitting the other trucks than killing Xander.

A ghost hand appeared again, and Xander shivered as ghost fingers reached for him, brushing over his arm.

“Hey, thanks for the ride,” Xander said as he reached for the handle; however, he made the mistake of looking at Garfield. It was as if a movie projector shone an image onto him so it fuzzed out at the edges, but the image was clear enough for Xander to see Garfield wearing a wife-beater shirt as he held his hands around a woman’s throat. She screamed silently, her mouth open as she clawed at his arms. One hand groped along the floor until she grabbed something, and she slashed at him.

Xander watched the knife part the flesh of Garfield’s arm, and when Xander looked down, the real Garfield had a scar along his left forearm in that exactly place.

Panic and horror pushed the bile up into Xander’s throat as he stared at that scar—at that proof. Something broke Xander’s concentration because he looked up at Garfield’s face, and now Xander could see a half-dozen women, all screaming and dying and writhing in pain as Garfield strangled them and stabbed them an did things to the bodies that made Xander want brain bleach.

“Why would you….” Xander stopped, unable to even say those things out loud. A woman floated toward the back, and suddenly Xander knew that Garfield had trophies back there… a necklace from a woman in Connecticut, a lock of hair from a prostitute in New York, a set of teeth on a string that came from a woman in Florida.

“What do you mean?” Garfield’s voice lost all emotion, but Xander watched a ghost arm reach for a gun, Xander ripped the door open and tumbled out into the chilly evening air.

“He’s got a gun. Someone call a cop!” Xander yelled as he ran for the nearest truck. In his experience, Xander found that most people froze in that kind of situation, but this trucker had pulled his own gun out of the back of his pants and pointed it in Xander’s general direction before Xander could finish. Xander tried to stop too fast, slipped, and fell on his ass, but when he heard footsteps behind him, he scrambled toward guy number two, gun or no gun.

“He killed girls. He told me how he killed girls and one sliced him up, and he pointed a gun at me, and I am really not interested in getting shot by a psycho.” Xander blurted it all out as he ran for this new trucker, a black guy with short cropped hair and a very confused expression. However, Xander must have convinced him because the guy shifted until he pointed the gun at Garfield.

“Stay back. I do not want to shoot you in the middle of big old tanks of diesel, but I will if you come one step closer.”

“He’s some criminal. He stole from me,” Garfield said.

The guy glanced over at Xander. Xander shook his head. “I am seriously not stealing a necklace made out of women’s teeth, and even as serial killers go, that is creepy beyond all levels of creep known to man.”

Garfield turned white.

The new guy looked back and forth between Xander and Garfield before seeming to settle on seeing Garfield as the bad guy. “Fuck. That’s some sick shit. Let’s call for the police and settle this.”

“I’m not waiting for some cops.” Garfield turned his back, shoving his gun in his waistband, but Xander could see a new scene forming from the shadows. Garfield floored his truck toward a roadblock. He hit it so hard cop cars flew… falling on fleeing bodies, trapping officers between steel cars and the guardrail and crushing them so that flesh bulged and the ragged ends of bones stuck out at jagged angles. Xander’s stomach lurched.

“Don’t let him go,” Xander turned to the second guy.

He shook his head. “I’m not getting involved in a shootout. I’ll call in his license plate.”

Xander couldn’t let all those men die. Bloodied faces and blank eyes stared at him from the shadows, and without stopping to think, Xander darted after Garfield. Behind him, the other trucker called out, but Xander caught Garfield by the arm. The second the man started to turn, Xander knew this had been utterly and deeply stupid. He didn’t have Buffy and Willow to save him here, and this guy was armed and more than willing to kill.

Just as Xander started to panic, he felt something warm gathering under his palm. Garfield turned, his eyes wide with shock, and they kept getting wider and wider. The warmth spread, and for a second, Xander felt infused with heat, the sort like he felt from a really strong eggnog that made you warm from the inside out. The world slowed, and Xander braced his feet as he started getting light headed, but then the world erupted into motion.

The second truck driver yanked Xander away, and stood between him and Garfield with his gun pointed at Garfield. Three men were running out of the café, and Xander could feel a pull so strong that he looked down at his hand to see if he had something tied to it. For a brief second, he could almost see a white thread trailing back to Garfield, but as soon as Xander saw it, the thread snapped, and Xander fell back on his ass.

“I don’t think he’s breathing.”

“What the fuck is going on?”

“The cops are coming!”

“Does anyone know CPR?”

“He’s grabbing his left arm. That means heart attack.”

“The other guy said this one attacked him, that he’s some sort of serial killer.”

The words floated past Xander. He ignored them just like he ignored the men milling around and the sounds of distant sirens. Ignoring all of it, he focused on Garfield’s open eyes. The man was dead. Someone was trying to use CPR, but some voice deep inside Xander told him that it was too late. The man was deader than dead. Something vital inside was simple gone, and he was an empty shell lying on the hard concrete, a rainbow captured in an oil spill near his head. He was dead… and Xander had killed him.


	3. The Police.  Oh Joy.

“And then what happened?” the detective asked. Of course, he’d asked it about twenty times now, so Xander just let his head fall forward onto the table. It thunked against the wood and immediately started to ache, but Xander had so many problems, he couldn’t be bothered to care.

At least they hadn’t handcuffed him to it or read him his rights. In his universe, that usually meant he was still in the witness category instead of having the cops assume he was the suspect. It helped that Garfield had dropped dead of an apparent heart attack. Yep. It was a heart attack and not Xander with his new life force sucking powers of monsterliness.

“Mr. Harris? Are you okay?” The cop sounded genuinely concerned.

Xander didn’t lift his head from the table. “When my mother told me horror stories about hitch hiking, I thought they were stories. You know, like not real.” Or at least that the nonhuman baddies were the ones to watch out for.

Xander really didn’t know what to think about human evil. He didn’t have any guilt going because unlike Buffy he was perfectly okay saying some humans were slaying sorts of evil. He’d met a whole bunch of them in Africa. Witch doctors had a really bad habit of using slayers and bloody slayer parts in their brews. Spike said it was the whole ‘power corrupts’ thing, but Xander knew lots of powerful people who never even dreamed of chopping up a fifteen year old girl to use her parts in a brew.

“The department is getting you a hotel room for the night.”

“Yea,” Xander said without much enthusiasm.

The detective chuckled. “Most people wait to see the room before complaining how cheap it is.”

Xander sat back up and eyed the man who really did seem to be doing his best. “Hey, if it has a bed and a roof, I’m fine with it. I don’t even need walls, not in this weather. Yep, give me a bed and about a year to sleep and hopefully forget any of this even happened, and I’ll be good.”

“Well,” the detective had that other-shoe-dropping voice, “we do have one other issue.”

“Um… okay?”

“Insurance fraud.”

Xander blinked and mentally rewound that bit of conversation. “I wasn’t planning on filing for any insurance. I’m not hurt. I’m actually oddly better than usual,” he said, rubbing his newly replaced eye. Eve was a little on the pyscho side, but she did a nice job of fixing missing eyes.

“I’m actually talking about a claim filed about nineteen months ago.”

Aw, shit. That would be the actual Alexander Harris from this universe, and Xander had no idea what that Alexander might have done. So many times Xander had thought about the fact that if he’d fallen in with another crowd, people other than Willow and Jesse and then Buffy that he might have turned out on the slightly less than moral side. He spent way too much time trying to please people, and if this Alexander was anything like him and had fallen in with a group that did illegal shit, then badness would have followed.

“Your parents reported you dead in an earthquake and collected $50,000.”

The knot of fear slipped free, and Xander found he could breathe again. “Oh.”

The detectives eyebrows went up. “Oh? That’s all you have to say?”

Actually, Xander had a lot to say. The first on the list was that he was glad there weren’t two of him running around. The next was that his parents deserved better than to have some stranger show up with their dead son’s face. About item ten or twelve on the list was the first he could share with the detective, though. “Um, I’m not really close to my parents, and I haven’t talked to them in way longer than that, so they might have actually thought I was dead.”

“But you’re not.”

Xander made a show of checking his pulse. “Pretty much, no.”

“And you haven’t used a credit card, shown up on any official documents or registered a car, for a license, bought a house….” The detective gave Xander a meaningful look, but Xander just gazed back because he didn’t know what meaning this guy was getting at. After several very awkward minutes, the detective sighed. “It sounds like you’re trying to stay off the grid, maybe to help your parents collect that insurance money.”

“I pretty much haven’t helped my parents with anything since I was fourteen,” Xander said, and he was being honest. His parents took neglect to whole new levels. They loved him when he was right in front of their faces and didn’t think about him when he wasn’t. Alcohol helped with that.

“So you’re in hiding for some other reason?”

Cringing was not a good move, because the second Xander did, the detective lasered in on him, leaning forward like a hunter about to shoot his prey, and that was so not a good image to come to mind. “You need to come clean with me, Mr. Harris.”

“Hey, I’m just trying to avoid looking like a crackpot.”

“A crackpot?”

“You know, a person whose pot has cracked, whose head needs examining, whose judgment may be slightly or more than slightly screwy.”

“Who are you hiding from?”

“Um, the end of the world?” Xander tried to laugh, like he was making a joke. The story sucked, but it was better than talking about some fight with some fictional girlfriend because then the cops would want to meet her. Even if Eve were in this universe, Xander was pretty sure he wanted to keep any and all police officers away from her. So instead he made himself look like an idiot. Or at least, that was the plan. Instead of giving Xander the hairy eye, the detective nodded sympathetically. People were not supposed to be sympathetic on the subject of apocalypses. They weren’t.

“Where have you been hiding?”

“Canada… I think. It might have been northern New Hampshire or Maine… who knows. The point was to get lost.”

“So, the world ends, only you think Maine and Canada will be safe?”

“Canada… sure. Whatever happens in Canada?”

“The Falher fire killed almost seven hundred people and they had an earthquake in Grand Banks.”

“Oh.” Damn. When Canada started getting hit with the apocalypse, Xander wasn’t sure any place was safe. Canada and Tibet had some major anti-mojo mojo going for them, at least that was Spike’s story. Xander was willing to admit that it was equally true that Spike didn’t want to go to Canada or Tibet so he had made up the whole thing about those places being unfriendly to the otherworldly sort.

“You haven’t kept up on the news, huh?”

“Not really.”

“So, why come back now?”

Xander was ready for this question. Actually, it was the only one he had actually planned out, although he’d planned it out while traveling through the Congo. “I had a small disaster, and maybe I should have been a little more careful about where I put my camp, but I got a little too close to the water, and there was a small landslide and…” Xander shrugged and gave the detective his best sheepish grin.

“How much did you lose?”

“Pretty much everything. I had the tent left, but no way to carry it, and some of the food survived, but not as much as went downriver, and it was just time to come home.”

The detective nodded with sympathy. Apocalypse preparation had gone mainstream. Yep, this world sucked.

“We’ll put you up for a couple of nights and get you some ID. However, I think you’re going to find that your parents have control of your bank accounts. And the department will have to inform the insurance company that we found you alive and well.”

“More the alive than the well,” Xander muttered.

Reaching across the table, the detective patted Xander on the arm, but Xander flinched back. Stealing Garfield’s life was crappy, but not entirely unjustified. However, Xander planned to avoid all human contact from now on. No more killing humans for him. Nope. That way led to badness, and slayers… assuming there were slayers in this universe. If not, there would definitely be hunters. Rogue demon hunters generally were no joke—not unless it was Wesley bumbling his way through the hunting.

“We can get you in touch with a social worker, someone to help you get your life back on track. Do you have any job skills?”

A rough laugh slipped out of Xander unbidden. Hunting demons, rounding up donuts and talking fifteen year old girls into joining quests—that was the grand sum of his resume.

“There are job training programs available; you can get some vocational training.”

Xander blinked. Wait. He had both eyes, which meant he had depth perception back and he could work with power tools without danger of self-decapitation. Well, self-cutting off of fingers, anyway. “I was a journeyman carpenter. I can do light construction.”

The detective graced him with a bright smile. “Good. There’s a lot of call for that sort of work.”

Xander started to smile, but he froze as he watched a woman appear at the detective’s side. She had a bullet through her forehead, and when she turned, most of the back of her head was gone. She looked at the detective so sadly that Xander could feel his heart contract. Damn. Was everyone in this world a murderer? A thought hit Xander. Maybe everyone in his world was on the murder train. Seriously, how could a person tell?

However a second later he changed his mind. The woman brought a hand up and cupped the side of the guy’s face. She tilted her head and leaned close to press a ghostly kiss on the top of the detective’s head, and suddenly Xander just knew that this was the detective’s mother. Detective Woodridge. That was his name. Dan Woodridge. His mother had been shot by an ex-boyfriend when Dan was away at college.

The woman stood behind Detective Woodridge, her hands sweeping over his shoulders.

But this couldn’t be a ghost. Ghosts were never good. Never. Not even when they started out on the totally good side. In Cleveland, there’d been this woman, and she and her husband had the all-consuming forever sort of love, so when he died, he stuck around. Only after a while he started getting cranky, and all the barking dogs in a one mile radius started dropping dead. And then there was the breaking of things and finally the ghost killed the woman he loved and then kept on killing. Giles had been so close to getting his ass kicked on that one. And Willow had been weepy with the whole Romeo and Juliet of it all, but the moral came down to one thing: ghost equaled bad.

But this woman was breaking that rule. She just kept gazing at her son with all this love.

Xander stared at her.

“Mr. Harris?” Detective Woodridge nearly shouted his name, and Xander jerked as he realized the man had said it several times.

“Sorry. I just…” Xander gave a little laugh.

“Maybe we should get you checked out at the hospital.”

“Um, I actually think a few hamburgers would do me more good than a doctor,” Xander suggested. He noticed that the woman had scattered. It was as if she was made of mist and parts of her had sort of drifted away from other parts. Yep, not ghost.

Xander decided to go with a little experimentation. “My mom,” he said, and he could see the mist start to gather back up, “she really loves me, you know?”

The detective nodded, and his own mother was now standing over him, that same adoring expression.

“It’s just that her and my father aren’t exactly the sort of parents who want me around.”

Detective Woodridge gave him a sympathetic look. “I’m sorry. That’s pretty shitty. Let’s get you some food and a place to stay for the night, and hopefully by then we can find some resources for you, okay?”

Xander nodded absent-mindedly. Food and bed sounded good. Better would be a trip to Giles’ library to figure out what he was looking at, because this was definitely not a ghost. As Detective Woodridge started to close up the paperwork, slipping the pieces back into his file, his mother’s image faded, the fog drifting away until there was nothing left.

Weird.

Maybe Xander needed to figure out if Rupert Giles existed in this universe.


	4. New York, home of the Mets and Rupert Giles

Xander found himself staring out the bus window as the bus rumbled toward New York City. The guy next to him smelled like feet, but Xander smelled like cheap hotel soap and the disinfectant Goodwill had used on the new shirt the Maine cops had bought him. Those were two smells that could rival feet-stink.

Rupert Giles existed. On paper, he seemed fairly boring. Then again, Xander’s Giles was a stuffy librarian on paper, but in real life, he was a sword-sharpening sidekick to the most powerful warrior on the planet. Secret identities were tricky that way… what with all the secrets.

But his Giles had been a watcher and he’d grown up knowing about slayers and vampires and things that went bump in the night, and as much as this universe had things that went bump, there was a real lack of slayers. Buffy Summers was a college student in Los Angeles who had never even burned down a gym, much less burned down a gym full of vampires. Willow still used her same online names and passwords on the same online chats, but she was getting a masters degree in cognitive and evolutionary anthropology in Oxford. Oz vanished from the public records about halfway through high school, so Xander could only hope he wasn’t at the bottom of the rubble when big chunks of Sunnydale collapsed in an earthquake. Both Xander’s parents had survived the quake, which wasn’t all that surprising. Only thirty-three people had died in that quake, and there was a definite lack of giant sucking hole where a hellmouth had closed.

Xander turned back to the Supernatural book he’d picked up at Goodwill. The two brothers were hunting demons while trying to track down their father, and even Xander could tell this was more than just a story. Most monster movies and horror books turned everything into a metaphor for people and their own psychological demons.

These books had monsters who had monsterish motives, which felt less booklike than some way of communicating hunting techniques without sounding like a crazy man to the rest of the universe. Of course the whole plot with brothers who’d been stalked by evil their whole lives and had a weird vibe between them was all fiction, but the monsters… that felt real.

All of it except the vampire lore. Either the vampire stuff was pure fiction or this universe had a freaky definition of vampire. They could walk around in the sunlight and walk into houses uninvited, and they were nearly extinct, and those three things did not add up in Xander’s brain. Without those two drawbacks, Spike would have totally killed Buffy back in his evil days. And Angelus would have turned most of Europe into kibble. But no, these vampires didn’t get more than a sunburn and they were nearly extinct. Xander was putting them in the “wussy” category. Either that or the author of the Supernatural books had a little wishful thinking going. Xander only wished vamps were that warm and fuzzy and incompetent.

On the other hand, the books Xander had gotten his hands on had a scary range of shapeshifters and demons that scared the pants off him, especially given that he didn’t have Buffy to call when the shit hit the fan. Xander closed the last of the four Supernatural books he’d found without any hints about whether Eve had turned him into some ghost-seeing demon unique to this universe. Xander snuck a quick look at his stinky neighbor, but the man didn’t seem to sprout any apparitions.

“What you looking at?” the man demanded.

“Nothing. A whole lot of nothing, and nothing is good. Really good. Yep. Good nothing.” Xander turned and focused out the window again.

“Freak.” The guy didn’t bother muttering quietly.

“Oh hell yes,” Xander agreed. That seemed to shut the man up.

The bus threaded through some nasty traffic before pulling into a station. Xander sat and waited as other people grabbed their stuff and headed out. All he had was one very old duffle bag Detective Woodridge had gotten him with victim compensation money… the same money that had bought Xander two pairs of jeans, two shirts and four books at Goodwill and a pack of white underwear from Walmart. That was Xander’s entire worldly fortune. He didn’t even have a weapon, other than his Swiss army knife, and those were not really good for beheadings.

His only hope was that Rupert Giles, businessman, was secretly fighting the forces of evil.

Xander had made it all the way from the bus station to lower Manhattan and the offices for Giles Family Exports before it occurred to him that if Eve was right, Xander might qualify as the forces of evil… not that he felt evil, but Giles was a little anti-nonhuman. At least his Giles was.

Spike had died for the world, stood by Buffy when the whole thing with the Immortal got ugly, helped them stop one more Angel-prophesy and generally proved himself to be a good guy. He was still sarcastic and couldn’t be trusted with a remote control or a Sharpie pen when the roommate was asleep, but he’d left evil behind.

Xander was the first to admit that.

Okay, so Xander was more like the seventh or eighth to say that behind Buffy, Willow, Kennedy, Robin, Andrew, Vi, and Clem, but still… he could admit that he’d been wrong. Giles, however, still left Spike off the world-saving emails. Xander didn’t know if that was his watcher training with the anti-demon bias or just some special hatred for anyone who dated and broke Buffy. He wasn’t exactly a fan of Angel, The Immortal, or even Riley Finn. Pretty much any man or woman who upset his surrogate daughter ended up on the “hate for life” list Giles kept in his head.

On the bright side, this new Giles wouldn’t remember the time a giant Xander-sneeze blew snot all over his original copy of the Gaius Marius Grimoire.

Walking into the Giles Family Export offices, Xander knew that Giles in any universe knew how to fight some serious evil. The offices took up several floors in an expensive high rise with steel and glass Runes decorated the walls. Oh, they were done in shades of limestone in the terrifyingly expensive décor and hidden in carved grape leaves, but Xander had been painting protective runes long enough to know ‘em when he saw them.

Putting on his best smile, Xander headed for the receptionist—a burly man who clearly had skills beyond answering phones. “Is Rupert Giles in?”

The receptionist gave Xander the hairy eye. “Do you have an appointment?”

Xander opened his mouth and then closed it again. Okay, plan B. “No, but I know he’ll want to talk to me.”

The hairy eye glare turned into something more lethal. “You’ll have to call his assistant for an appointment.”

“Giles has an assistant?” Xander blurted out. And the second the words were out, Xander knew he had made a tactical error. He could almost taste the growing aggression in the air, and he wasn’t entirely sure that was a metaphor.

“Do you know Mr. Giles?” The receptionist shifted, and unless Xander missed his guess, he’d just pulled a weapon.

“Um, kinda… more in a friend of a friend of a friend kind of way.”

The receptionist eyed him a little the way Buffy eyed something small and slimy before stepping on it. “And did this friend send a formal introduction?”

Clearly Xander needed to find something that would make this guy take him seriously. Okay, think supernatural. He went with the first thing that came into his head. “I didn’t really ask for an introduction because I had a cold, and I sneezed, only there was a three thousand year old grimoire, and I… yeah, that’s not a story I really want to finish telling. It doesn’t reflect well on me.” Xander went for the puppy look that had always gotten Willow to do his math homework. The receptionist seemed unmoved.

“Leave your name and number, and I will inform Mr. Giles that you are seeking an interview.”

“Way to go with the stuffy,” Xander muttered. And once again, the receptionist gave him the hairy eye. Holding up his hands in surrender, Xander started backing away. “And hey, feel free to stuff away. Giles probably loves you what with all the… you know… stuffy. But I don’t actually have a number, so I think I’ll just show myself out.” Xander reached the door and yanked it open. The handle tingled under his palm, and Xander looked down to see a small rune traced into the metal. Yep, this Giles was as paranoid as Xander’s, and right now, Xander had no way to get past the great hulking receptionist. He also had no money, no food, and no place to stay. Add in a few people pointing AK47s at him and Xander would feel right at home.

“You’d be calling me all sorts of names right now, Spike,” Xander muttered as he got into the elevator. A woman in a business suit scooted farther back away from him. “British name,” Xander added as he watched the numbers on the elevator light up one by one as they headed down to the ground level. As much as Xander hated to admit it, he did miss that.

Spike was the stable force in his life. Buffy was… hell, he didn’t know what Buffy was. Buffy was a twenty-something one day, rushing around Rome trying to buy every pair of cute pink heels she could find and she was a general next, barking orders at everyone.

Willow just scared him. Oh, he would never say it to her face, but she was more powerful every day. Xander had been at ground zero of all-powerful Willow at one point in his life, and he still had the scars from it. When Dark Willow had thrown her magic at him, she’d left a small constellation of tiny white scars. And the more powerful Willow got, the more Xander found himself remember what it felt like to feel Willow’s power course through him and know he was going to die.

Over the years, Spike was the one he’d turned to more and more. The world changed in ways Xander sometimes couldn’t understand, but Spike was still there with snark and bad English beer and worse English insults. And no matter what stupid thing Xander did, Spike insulted him with the same casual indifference and fished him back out of trouble. If Xander stopped up a toilet and needed someone to turn off the frozen shut-off valve or if Xander had angered a witch doctor who threatened to open a new hellmouth, Spike used the same damn insults, which was vaguely comforting.

The elevator doors opened, and Xander headed out into the hurrying New York crowds. Smoking. Too damn many people were smoking. That was the first thing Xander noticed as he wandered the streets with no particular place to go. He should head for the Algonquin. In the early 1900s, a group of demon hunters had met there in his own world, so if Xander wanted to find out about the things that went bump in the night, maybe this universe would have the same group of rogue demon hunter nerds hanging out around the place.

Xander had always liked the idea that the poet Dorothy Parker had been a badass hunter when she wasn’t writing poems. If she could deal with all the sexism and the total uncool factor associated with writing poetry and still be a secret badass, Xander had always felt like there was some hope for him. So, he needed to find the Algonquin. And then he needed to spot a rogue demon hunter. Then he needed to try and convince the hunter not to hunt him. And if Giles wanted to find him, Xander suspected the man could find him even without a phone number. That rune on the door handle had looked a lot like a tracker symbol.


	5. A Few Inches South

The Algonquin turned out to be a fair distance from Central Park, which was strange because in his universe, they were definitely right next to each other. Part of him said he should go and find hunters, but honestly, Xander was so tired that all he wanted was Giles. Giles was the knowing-everything man who could make this all make sense. And unless Giles was as screwy as the New York geography, he would track Xander down faster than Buffy going after a shoe sale.

So Xander settled in under a tree and waited. He was the watcher-man now, only Xander found himself watching the masses of people who passed him. This world looked so much like his own, except then there were little differences. Buildings carried faint runes in the shadows of porticos and arches. Skyscrapers were more ornate with balustrade and gothic details Xander didn’t remember from his trips to New York, and the sky seemed to have a gray undertone despite the lack of clouds. This might not be a totally new universe, but it wasn’t his same old universe either.

A woman struggled to get a baby stroller over a broken curb, and Xander stood up to help her. He’d crossed half the distance before a man in his forties stopped to lift the end of the stroller and exchange a quick word with the woman. The man stood, and Xander met Giles’ eyes.

Xander stumbled back a half step. This was the man who had fathered him more than his own father, but it wasn’t. This Giles had a harder edge to him, enough so that he reminded Xander of band candy night and the unexpected appearance of Ripper. No way was this guy a simple export-import guy.

And the second Xander reacted, Giles narrowed his eyes and he slipped his hand under his tweed coat. Lovely. Xander weighed honest fear and the certain knowledge that if he ran Giles would track him down and be even less friendly. Xander had seen unfriendly Giles, and it wasn’t pretty.

With his best harmless grin, Xander headed back to the bench and sat down, waiting for Giles to come over. Strange as it was to see this alien Giles, Xander still recognized his mentor. For example, Giles carefully didn’t look to the right, so Xander was guessing he had backup in that direction. He definitely would have someone at Xander’s back, and Xander could feel a little itch between his shoulder blade. He was so totally imagining it, but he could feel someone watching him. He could practically taste their suspicion.

Giles walked over warily, and his body had angles that Xander usually saw in Wood or Riley. He was prepared to fight. That actually made sense since he didn’t have a slayer, but still… it was weird. Xander definitely didn’t like this world, and making a mental note to avoid looking up any more of the old gang, he waited for this Giles version 2 to reach him.

Giles crossed the street and then stood a few feet from Xander, pretty much looming over him. And in true Giles’ style, he stared down, silently daring Xander to say something stupid. Of course, this Giles didn’t know how very likely that was.

“Hey,” Xander finally offered when it seemed like Giles might stare forever.

Giles shifted his stance without answering.

“Which is not really a way of greeting people, and trust me, I’ve had the stuffy English lecture on proper forms of greeting.” Xander smiled. Giles didn’t. Clearly this throat, Xander stood up and offered his hand. “Xander. And I assume you’re Giles, so very nice to meet you.”

Giles looked around for a second before reaching out his own hand, but instead of shaking, he flicked water at Xander.

Xander looked down at the wet freckles across his hand and jacket. “Um, spell? Holy water?” Xander brought his hand to his nose and sniffed while Giles kept watching curiously. The stuff stunk like what his mother used to scrub the toliets. “Ew. Okay, that’s gross.” Xander wiped the back of his hands off on his jeans.

“You said you wanted to meet.” Giles was in full Ripper mode now, which was ironic because that had definitely been a test for something. Xander just wasn’t sure which demon had an aversion to clean toilets.

“Um, yeah.” Now that Xander was looking Giles in the eye, he had no idea what to say to the man. Finding Giles had been instinct. Terror did lead a person to want to go running back to the nearest parental unit, but this Giles wasn’t his Giles. And right now, Xander felt the ache and pain of that loss more acutely than he had at any time since waking up in Purgatory.

“Well?” Giles demanded.

“Hey, this is not easy stuff to talk about,” Xander blurted out before he sat back don on the bench. If he didn’t, his knees were going to fail.

Giles looked at something behind Xander and gave a little flick of his head before sitting carefully on the far side of the bench.

“Please tell me that wasn’t you giving some order to shoot me in the back with a crossbow.”

“Would a crossbow kill you?”

Xander did a double take. “Human here. Pretty much everything kills me, which is very unfair, but then I’ve been avoiding the actual death part of humanity for a while, so I’ve come to terms with my own totally unfair weaknesses.”

A flash of confusion darted across Giles’ face, and for a second, Xander felt like he was home. His heart ached more.

“Are you human? You seemed to have a few magical properties I’m not identifying easily.”

“Well, that might be part of the whole kidnapped out of my own reality thing. I find inter-reality kidnappings mess with the fabric of the universe. At least they do in comics. I haven’t run across that many in the real world… not unless you count Willow’s vampirey half showing up out of Anya’s wish spell or Anya herself who seemed to go reality hopping a lot. But for the most part, people in reality stay in their own reality, except when they don’t.” Xander shrugged.

And off came Giles’ glasses as he started polishing. Yep, you could take the stuffy out of the Englishman, but he still wouldn’t be prepared for Xander logic.

“And you do that a lot in my universe, too,” Xander said with a wave toward the glasses.

“Do I?” Giles cleared his throat and put his glasses back on. “Curious. I rarely do it here.”

“Maybe you just don’t have enough people to annoy you.”

Giles shifted on the bench. “I assume you are going to tell me that you’re trapped, that the person you recommended you come to me was, in fact, me. Perhaps you’re even going to tell me that the grimoire you apparently sneezed on was mine.”

“Um… kinda,” Xander agreed.

Giles sat up straighter. “I am not a fool.”

“I never—”

“And I am not going to play into your hand. So you can go back to your master, whoever that is, and tell him that the game won’t work. The blade is not for sale and I won’t have some bumbling idiot trick me out of it.”

Xander had the definite impression he was the bumbling idiot in this equation. “First, I have no idea what you’re talking about. The only blade I know is the hunga munga and the sword of Moskva and of course the em-scythe thingy that you always tell me I’m mispronouncing.”

“Do I?”

“With full lectures about glottal stops and not mangling the languages of others because mispronouncing spells can have world-ending consequences, but the most I’ve ever done is accidentally set a book on fire. And that was not my fault because I shouldn’t have been reading the book at all, only you guys insisted everyone had to do research, even though you guys know that me and magic are unmixy.”

“So, your grand plan seems to be convincing me you are an utter and complete fool.”

“That’s pretty much me without any planning or acting involved,” Xander admitted. “But I helped save the world and pretty much ended up being part of team-good for a lot of years.”

“And now you’re here, needing my help?”

“Well, the more you talk, the less I feel like I want any help at all from you.” Xander steeled himself for Giles indignation. As much as Xander didn’t want to admit it, when Giles got upset, Xander felt about two inches high. It was funny. His other father pretty much considered Xander a piece of shit, and he didn’t care. Let Giles give a disappointed sigh and Xander felt a little twitching need to rush after him and make it all better. Of course most of the time Xander just ended up screwing up worse, but that was part of his charm. At least it had been.

“Then maybe we can agree on something.” Giles tilted his head toward Xander before he started to stand up.

“One thing,” Xander said when Giles turned to leave. Giles looked back down at him and waited, his hand under his coat again. The tickling sensation between Xander’s shoulder blades had gotten about twenty times worse. “If you’d been pulled out of your world without a penny to your name and had to have some cop buy you a few clothes at Goodwill after you nearly got yourself killed by a serial killer, where would you go? I mean, if you wanted to stay out of people’s way until your own Giles found a way to undo the major mess you landed in, I mean.”

For a second, Giles considered him coldly. “Anywhere away from me,” he finally answered. Then he turned and started back toward the opposite side of the street.

“Yeah, real helpful,” Xander called after him. “Thanks a lot. I like you better when you’re all Watchery and stuffy and slayer following.” With a huff, Xander grabbed his bag off the ground, but something made him glance up and, Giles was there, two inches from his face with a look of pure fury.

“What did you say?”

Xander shifted backwards, but he had the bench at the back of his knees and he couldn’t retreat more. “Nothing. Nope. I am totally not insulting your stuffiness, especially since this you is less with the stuffy.”

For a second, Giles gritted his teeth so hard that his jaw muscle bulged, and this was definitely Ripper and not Giles. “What did you say about a slayer?”

“Buffy?” Xander sucked in a breath. He had so not meant to throw her name out there, not that this world’s Buffy was a slayer or had any secrets beyond where to buy the cutest shoes, but still. Secret identities were secret.

Giles tilted his head to the side, and reached out to grab Xander’s arm.

“Hey!” Xander protested when Giles started pulling him toward the road. Something hard stuck him in the side, and Xander looked down to see the dark muzzle of a gun sticking out from Giles jacket. Oh hell. This definitely wasn’t his Giles.

“You said you’re human, and I’m taking you at your word. So either you come along or I’ll shoot you and see if you bleed red.”

“They’d arrest you,” Xander said, barely getting the air to come out. He could feel something dark and hungry pressing up, pushing against the back of his throat, and he swallowed nervously.

“I can take care of myself,” Giles said in an almost gleefully calculated way. Oh this was so not good. Xander’s own Giles was scary enough, but this one was scary on steroids. He started pulling on Xander’s arm again, and this time Xander followed without protest.

“I like you better when you’re all English and stuffy,” Xander muttered.

“I assure you that I am still English. However, given the number of signs of the pending apocalypse that appear every day, none of us has time to be stuffy. It’s every species for itself, and I intend humanity to survive.” A black van pulled up in front of them, and Xander wasn’t even a tiny bit surprised when the side door open and Giles shoved him inside.


	6. The more things change, the more they don't

Xander shifted on the hard bench, and the chain around his waist rattled. Yep, they’d searched, handcuffed and chained him, and Xander would take it as a compliment that they felt threatened by him, but he was too uncomfortable.

“Just these books,” the younger of the two goons said, tossing Xander’s Supernatural books on the floor of the van.

“Hey, those are all my worldly possessions there,” Xander complained. Giles gave him a glare cold enough to make a shiver go through Xander’s spine. Yep, this Giles definitely had more of the badass going for him.

“Nothing else?” Giles demanded. Taking the bag, he turned it inside out and searched the stitching like he would find a spell book in the lining or something.

“He’s clean,” goon number two said. The van took a corner, and the others braced themselves on the sides while Xander was nearly bent double as his body tried to fly off the bench. Instead the chain holding him to the wall just dug into the flesh of his stomach.

“Hey, feel free to let me out and I will happily never bother you again,” Xander offered.

“How many people know about slayers?” Giles demanded.

Both goons and Giles all turned and eyed Xander like he was going to sprout horns or something. “Wait. I thought you people didn’t have slayers,” Xander said as he realized that Giles was definitely keeping the secrets.

“It could be a trap,” the younger goon warned.

Giles gave him one of those looks he usually reserved for Xander when Xander had done something particularly and spectacularly stupid. “Yes, thank you. I had considered it.” Even the older guy who seemed slightly less psychotic than this Giles gave a good eye roll at that bit of stupidity.

The young guy shrank back, and for a second, Xander actually felt sorry for him. Of course, he had helped chain Xander inside a van, so the sympathy was short-lived, but still, Giles sarcasm was sharp, sharp weapon.

A bright blue light flashed, and Xander pressed his eyes closed as spots danced on the insides of his lids. “We’re secure now.” The older thug clearly had some magical mojo going for him, and Xander could feel the fear and the need to roar out his anger like a living beast clawing at his ribs from the inside.

“So, tell us what you know about slayers.”

Xander didn’t open his eyes, but he could sense a body near him and smell the cold and oily scent of metal. Cracking an eye open, he looked to see Giles holding an ornately engraved knife so that the tip rested against Xander’s thigh.

“Um, that’s not really very comforting.”

“Comforting was not my first inclination,” Giles agreed. Giles was not actually all that nice to be around when he thought you were evil. Xander made a mental note to avoid Giles’ bad side in any and all dimensions. “Now, what do you know about slayers?”

“Um, they’re the one girl in all the world destined to fight the evil. A bunch of shadow men shoved the power of a demon in her and she became the perfect fighter, only maybe not so perfect because they do tend to die young.”

“That’s impossible,” the younger goon blurted out. “Slayers are myths, fairy tales.” The older goon made a shushing gesture.

“Nothing’s impossible,” Giles said. “So, how did the shadow men perform this spell?”

“You’re asking me?” Xander’s voice rose to girly levels. “How would I know? That was like a million years ago. Seriously, you have slayer myths? Why would someone make up myths about girls getting their lives hijacked? Not that fairy tales are normally happy. In general, fairy tales are pretty evil and definitely not for children.”

Giles tightened his fingers around his knife and got a determined expression that scared the pants off Xander. “The spell.”

“No, really,” Xander hurried to say, “I don’t know how any of the spell happened, and considering that the men were putting the power into a girl they’d chained up, I really am not interested in trying to figure out what they did. Who gave them the right to ruin some fifteen-year-old girl’s life? Many fifteen-year-old girls’ lives?”

Giles leaned back and angled the knife back and forth so that it caught the glimmers of light that leaked in around the curtain that separated the back from the driver. “Our slayer line was destroyed. Evil won that battle, but that doesn’t mean that what was lost can’t be found again. So tell me, how do you know the details of where the spell took place if you are so ignorant?” he asked in a so-superior tone of voice. Yep, he thought he’d caught Xander saying something stupid.

“One of the slayers I know got a visit from the first slayer in a dream. My friend shared. She probably overshared because I know the details of every crush she had from age fifteen to twenty-one, but she was much with the sharing about her personal indignation that men were enslaving a girl, and then Willow went on the misogyny warpath and I pretty much tuned out from there. Look, in my universe, you’re a Watcher. You come from a long line of stuffy English people to train the Slayers and help them use their powers when they come of age, only sometimes Watchers are more with the manipulating of young girls.” Giles’ eyes narrowed. “But not you,” Xander hurried to add. “You pretty much told your family to jump in a lake and you sided with your Slayer, which was good because you saved the world. Your family, however, was not amused.”

“My family was slaughtered by demons, their blood used the paint the drawing room of my ancestral home,” Giles said coldly.

Xander shrank back. “Oh.” Xander wondered if that was better or worse than having the First blow your family up, not that he would be winning over any friends if he gave that bit of history. “Things aren’t going so well here, are they?”

“Not that you would notice.” Giles brought the knife close to Xander’s chest. “Now, I need every detail you know about slayers, and if I have to carve the answers out of your flesh, I will.”

Xander swallowed as he looked down at the knife that rested against his chest. “And if I just pretty much already told you everything I know?”

“I would assume you were lying.”

Looking into Giles’ face, Xander studied the man, watching as shadow forms started to gather in the mists that rose from his body. Men and women in suits smoked pipes and sat at tables where they flipped the pages of massive books.

These definitely weren’t murder victims, so Xander had another reason to mark ghost off the list of possibilities. Hallucinations and mental illness were moving up to the top of the list because this didn’t make sense. All these people looked at Giles, and Xander could feel the weight of expectations. In the corners of the van, more and more people started to form, their clothing older and older until the men appeared in fancy collars and huge rings. Still, they all carried those books, and they all looked to Giles. One after another, they started whispering “slayer, slayer, slayer,” until Xander’s head throbbed with the beat.

“Well?” Giles demanded harshly, pressing the tip of the knife into Xander’s chest.

With a hiss, Xander plastered himself to the side of the van, and all the mist people vanished. “I don’t know. We just have a slayer. I don’t know how the power passes or why a particular person is called. I don’t.”

“How many did you know?”

“Three,” Xander said, which was a bit of a lie. He knew a lot of the girls who became slayers after the spell to activate all of them, but he didn’t want to get into the details because he did know part of that spell. He hadn’t approved of the spell in his universe, and he wouldn’t be part of recreating it here. That much power was trouble on any planet, not that anyone ever listened to his perfectly reasonable concerns that they might blow up the world by accident.

Giles leaned back and considered Xander. “Who?”

“Buffy Winters and Faith Polniaczek,” Xander lied, pulling out the last name for Jo from the Facts of Life. Hopefully this Giles disliked television as much as the other one.

“You said three.”

Xander gave an awkward shrug. “The third came in to kill some master vampire. I really didn’t know her, partly because she was all about the slaying and the tracking and really not much about getting to know a teenage boy,” Xander said, blending together truth and lies. His friends had been forced into a battle when they were too young to understand it, and he wouldn’t drag them into this battle. Well, not unless Giles started using torture and truth spells, and then Xander didn’t give himself very good odds.

“Look,” Xander said wearily, “our worlds aren’t the same. I mean, unless I’m wrong about those Supernatural books being real, you have vampires that can walk around during the day without getting more than a case of sunburn, and mine explode in a fiery ball of self-immolation. My Giles is more the sort to sit around with books and drink tea, and you’re looking like someone who is more likely to stab someone in the guts. And I’m pretty much just the comic relief, which you seem a little in need of, to be honest. My world has slayers, but I don’t know any magic that’s going to change that here if you don’t.”

“Don’t let him fool you, kid, Rupert would rather drink tea than torture people,” the older goon said as he gave Giles a long look. Mist rose, and Xander watched a younger version of the man take a child-sized Giles by the hand and show him how to use a crossbow. Giles couldn’t have been more than four or five, and the damn crossbow was larger than him, but yet Xander just knew that had been Rupert Giles. Xander blinked and the vision vanished.

“Which doesn’t change the fact that I will torture if need be,” Giles said with an equally unhappy look.

“Hey, how about we just talk, no torture required. I mean, in my world, we’re pretty much on the same side,” Xander pointed out. “At least when I’m not spilling food on your favorite books.”

The older goon leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees. “If he’s from another dimension, it could explain the magical signature. You and I both know he didn’t read like a demon or a leviathan.”

“You thought I was a giant fish?” Xander knew that Giles wasn’t perfect or anything, but assuming Xander was a fish seemed odd. And oddly accurate considering that the swim team coach had nearly turned him into one. Huh. Xander hadn’t realized it before, but he had come awfully close to getting demonified more than once.

Giles gave him a blank look and the older goon laughed. Hunter. The man was a hunter. The word crept into Xander’s brain like a caterpillar on little feet. Giles’ father hadn’t been a hunter, he’d been something else—something that thought of hunters as little more than beasts to be used in the field. Expendable. Yeah, some things never did change. Giles’ father hadn’t been big on the slayer respect either.

“Leviathan are monsters from Purgatory, designed to consume the world,” Giles said. “But unless you are from another universe, any hunter worth his salt would have known that. The supernatural universe has been flooded with these vicious monsters for over a year now.”

“Well then, I guess that’s proof I’m from another universe.”

“Or you’re a rather more clever ploy than we’ve seen before.”

That made Xander laugh. “Oh trust me. You have never called me clever, and I don’t care which universe we’re in, you’re not going to. Now daft, birdbrained, nit, pilchard and a half dozen other muttered-under-your-breath words which all required looking up on an English slang site, sure. But not clever.”

Giles jerked back, surprised, which didn’t make a whole lot of sense. He looked over at the older hunter, with a confused expression. It was the hunter who leaned forward and put a hand on Xander’s knee. Considering Xander was handcuffed and chained, he wasn’t really comfortable with the invasion of his personal space, but no one had asked him.

The hunter snorted. “So, you have a slayer and Rupert was her Watcher. I guess the Giles family are supernatural specialists in any universe.”

“I’m not the sort to watch. I’m more the sort to get into the middle of a ruckus and settle it,” Giles pointed out, and that was definitely not the Giles of Xander’s universe. “If you know anything of this world, then you know how close we have come to losing the battle. A slayer could help immensely, so if you have any way of helping us recreate the spell that created the line, that could mean the difference between humanity surviving this ludicrous war or the entire species being crushed like so many insects.”

“We have a slayer, and we’re still nearly crushed on a pretty regular basis,” Xander pointed out. “And I still don’t know anything about the spell. You’re the one who’s all spell-knowing in my world, and you don’t know anything about the spell. I mean, my you doesn’t know anything. Trust me, if you can’t figure it out, I’m not going to have any chance at all.”

Giles started to say something, but the hunter leaned back and put his hand on Giles’ leg. “Let the boy rest, Rupert. I don’t think he’s lying.”

“And if he is?”

The hunter gave Xander a nasty smile. “Then we kill him. Haven’t I taught you anything, Rupert?”

“You taught me to not trust random strangers,” Giles said as he settled in next to the hunter. The mists rose, and Xander watched the hunter as he taught Giles how to stalk prey—demons and monsters and vampires and werewolves. Giles hadn’t been a watcher—he’d been a hunter.

“You’re a demon hunter,” Xander said. The shock made the words slip out, and the second Xander said it, he regretted it immediately because he didn’t want to tell these guys about Eve or Purgatory or the visions. Xander had the feeling that this Giles wasn’t big with the open-mindedness.

Giles stared at him.

“I mean, of course you are with the weapons and the threats and the offer of torture, but…” Xander stopped and made a face. It was wrong. It was as wrong as the magical runes everywhere and the gray sky.

The hunter answered. “In your universe, his father raised him, didn’t he?”

Xander nodded.

The hunter patted Giles on the leg, a paternal gesture from the man who had raised Giles. “That explains why you’re such a plonker in his world, doesn’t it?”

Giles gave the man a dirty look and the younger hunter snorted out a quick burst of laughter. Giles took a second to glare at him too. “You’re assuming he’s telling the truth.”

“Insulting people who work for him while making them feel like they still owe loyalty… that sounds a lot like Cornelius Giles, and if the man had lived to raise you, I don’t doubt you would have turned out equally as stuffy and just as likely to use insults to keep the world at arm’s length.”

“You’re assuming a lot,” Giles said.

“I’m not assuming anything. I’m just keeping an open mind.”

Xander leaned forward to take the pressure off his shoulders, and all three men looked at him, making him feel like he had to say something. “Um, my Giles is really awesome. He stood up against the council when they weren’t treating Buffy right, and he’s really good at keeping the world from sliding into hell.”

“This Rupert isn’t bad at that last one either,” the hunter said with undisguised pride. “So, this council of yours… do they keep track of supernatural comings and goings?”

Xander nodded. “Usually. They had a council house in England where they kept a lot of research, but after Giles refused to get treated like a puppet they could yank around by the strings, they cut him off from the good research. And the good research librarians, which is why I ended up spending so much time with my nose in a book when I’m clearly not good at it.”

“Had.” Giles said the word in a flat tone. “They had a house. They’re dead, aren’t they?”

Letting his gaze fall to the floor, Xander nodded. “The First evil… he started to break free of his cage and he blew the Watchers up. All their houses, all their libraries. Thousands of years of secret societying all went boom in one night.”

“Do you think their First could be our Lucifer?” the hunter asked.

“The angel Lucifer?” Xander asked. “And no. Lucifer is Lucifer, assuming he’s not a myth in my world. The First doesn’t even have a name or a body or an anything. He’s just this giant force. He’s like a big magnet of evil.”

“Then how do you kill him?” Giles asked, and trust him to go to the least happy of all Xander’s world-saving endings.

“We didn’t,” Xander admitted. “We closed a door, but he’s still out there. I’m still thinking he’s not Lucifer. So, did your council guys get killed off?”

“The Learnéd Men,” the hunter offered. “In the new world, the branch was called the Men of Letters. A demon came after the members, hoping to steal a key to a vault of supernatural weapons. Rupert’s father died.”

“And you raised him,” Xander finished. It was a little on the obvious side.

“He’s trying to build rapport with us,” Giles said, and from the tone of voice he was using, rapport was a truly terrible thing.

“He can say whatever he wants. We’re not going to unchain him,” the hunter assured Giles. It was weird seeing Giles so willing to follow someone else’s lead. That wasn’t Giles. Or it wasn’t Xander’s Giles anyway. This Giles seemed perfectly willing to listen to his adopted hunter father. “If he’s lying, we keep control and lock him away.”

“And if I’m telling the truth?” Xander asked, with a little squeak in his voice. Given the circumstances, he had a right to squeak a little. This was not good, especially not if Eve’s spell was demonifying him.

“Then you don’t know enough about this world to be safe,” the hunter said with a casual shrug. “We’re doing you a favor by giving you a safe place to stay and three meals a day.”

“Behind a locked door with lots of chains involved,” Xander guessed.

“The boy’s fairly bright,” the hunter said with a big grin.

Groaning, Xander let his head fall back against the side of the van. Well shit.


	7. And the cavalry has arrived... sort of

Xander stared at the door as he tried to decipher the noises. Normally he heard a scratching noise that was probably a key, then a long slide of metal against metal and then the door opened and he was faced with two men--one with the gun and one with the food or the books or whatever else Xander had asked for. Except for the hacksaw he'd asked for. They'd never brought that.

But now the scratching went on and on. Xander gave the chain a good tug so he had enough slack to cross his legs as he waited. Locked in a room with a chain around his leg, he was getting pretty good at waiting.

Eventually the scratching ended and the long, familiar slide of metal and then the door started to slowly open. Xander's mouth dropped open when Spike slipped through the narrow opening. His Spike. Peroxided hair, leather coat Spike.

"Move it, Harris," Spike snarled, and that pulled Xander out of his stupor.

"I'd love to. Chained here," Xander snapped back, holding up the chain.

Spike pressed his lips together. "Bloody perfect," he muttered before he strode into the room, vibrating with fury.

"It's really you, isn't it?"

Eyeing Xander oddly, Spike crouched down to look at the lock on the ankle shackle. "How many times have you been hit in the head, Harris?"

"I mean, are you my universe's Spike? Because after seeing quantum mirror Giles, I'm not really sure I want to meet another version of you."

"Willow sent me. Now shut up so I can get you out of this." Spike applied his long fingers to the combination lock. Xander had spent days trying to feeling the tumblers the way people described in books. As far as he could tell, all the stuff about picking locks by feel was utter crap. However, Spike leaned close and twirled the face of the lock around several times, his head cocking to one side and then the other before he gave the lock a tug and it opened.

"Now move your arse," Spike ordered as he stood and headed for the door.

For a second, Xander wiggled his ankle, enjoying the feel of freedom, but knowing Spike's infamous lack of patience, he got up and ran to the shelf and started scooping up books. Pulling up the bottom of his shirt, he created a pouch to carry more.

"What the hell do you think you're doing, Harris?"

"Do you have a spell to get us home in the next hour?"

"You bloody ungrateful little git…"

"Research, Spike. If we're going to be stuck here, I'd rather not get eaten."

"What are you on about? They're cheap paperbacks, Harris."

"About monsters, Spike. They're paperbacks about two guys who fight monsters, and this world's Giles' father says they're mostly real, even if the two hunters are stupid as rocks for some of the things they do."

"Stupid demon hunters. Imagine that." Spike snorted and glared at Xander, but he also grabbed the books away from Xander and shoved them in his seemingly bottomless pockets. "We need to move. This lot may have treated you alright, but I don't think they're going to like me much."

"Someone not liking you, imagine that."

Spike ripped the last book out of Xander's hand. "Most people love me."

"Keep telling yourself, blondie." Xander paused. "God it's good to see you again."

"You really have taken one too many hits to the head. Can we leave or do you want to hang around and thank the blokes with the guns and stakes?"

"Maybe we should leave."

Spike shook his head, but Xander smiled. This was familiar. In a world where everything was just a little off, Spike snark was like salt and vinegar potato chips--a little mouth-puckeringly sharp but addictive.

Spike pulled a short sword out of his waistband and shoved it at Xander. "Let's try to avoid killing the good guys."

"Right. No good guy killing, not even Giles who is a little scary in this world."

"I've been watching this lot for three days now. Rupert is more than a little scary. Not that he scares me." Spike wiggled his eyebrows at Xander, and then he was out the door and Xander hurried to follow.

"Stupid fast vampire," Xander muttered when he found Spike at the far end of the hall. Giles' HQ was definitely on the cool side. It was a huge warehouse with the back portion divided into offices and hallways and the front half one big room. The two halves were connected by an open roof structure that towered high above the inside offices. Spike stood at the door that led into the main warehouse, his head cocked to one side, and Xander held his breath as he waited to see if things were clear. When Xander finally got to Spike's side, Spike gave him an odd look and then pointed up.

Xander tilted his head up and considered the network of rafters and braces and roof struts. Eyes wide, he shook his head madly. No way was he going up. First, that made them perfect targets for anyone who wanted to shoot at them. Second, no. Just no. He wasn't doing it.

Spike leaned close. "It's that or fight. I'm not killing because you're acting like a nit. Now move." Spike grabbed Xander's arm hard enough to make Xander flinch, and suddenly the ghosts surrounded them. A young version of Spike with curled, brown hair and glasses stood close to Spike's left side. Victims drifted in and out of focus--pale faces and bloodied necks were testament to how they died. A few women and one man actually stared at Spike like he was chocolate, even as they fingered their torn necks, and Xander so did not want to know what would inspire that sort of reaction.

Suddenly one shadow screamed and threw herself at Spike, her hands held out like claws. Xander sucked in a breath and jerked back against Spike's firm hold, but he couldn't escape and the woman with vivid red hair stained with mud crashed into Spike before scattering like dust.

"Bloody hell. What the fuck is the matter with you, mate?" Spike got nose to nose with Xander, his eyes flashing with yellow.

"Um, lots?" Xander offered an innocent smile, but Spike just looked at him oddly and then reached up to grab one of the support struts along the side of the warehouse.

"Climb or I'll drag you up," Spike ordered, pulling Xander closer to the wall.

"Has anyone ever called you pushy?"

"You. Usually when I'm trying to keep you from doing something stupid."

Xander couldn't exactly argue with that, so he started climbing up the side of the warehouse. Spike leaped up, passing Xander easily as he climbed up into the high roof structures.

"Show off," Xander complained. Moving in the shadows, Xander moved carefully across the main room of the warehouse. This was Giles' batcave, and from the looks of things below, they had just come in from a fight. Three cars were parked at odd angles, their doors all open. Yet no one was near them. And now that Xander concentrated, he could smell the scent of wet metal that normally meant he was nose deep in blood. The scent brought back memories of slayers dying in his arms, young women with guts torn out, and for a second, Xander really thought he might throw up. He wasn't entirely sure how these people would react to random vomit falling from their ceiling, so he closed his eyes and tried to ride out the nausea.

Spike stopped, holding up a hand, and Xander froze. Spike was doing something on the beam, creeping closer to a spot where a steel met in a spoke-like pattern. Staring at it, Xander could see a smoke-ghost gather again, this time an image of Giles' father, which was weird because he wasn't dead.

Xander glanced down toward the floor of the warehouse two stories below them. He hoped Giles' father wasn't dead. Xander actually liked the hunter. He believed Xander and brought him books, and explained which of the things in the Supernatural books were real, which pretty much came down to all of them. He also had a wicked sense of humor about all the stupid things the Winchester boys did. He seemed to be of the opinion that their father was all kinds of an idiot for not looking for older hunters who had more information about all the things that went bump in the night. As someone who had to figure out supernatural stuff on his own, Xander actually had a lot of sympathy for the boys. They'd had all sorts of suckage in their lives, so the fact they weren't at the bottom of a bottle trying to pickle their livers proved how strong they were.

However, if Xander was seeing Giles' father, did that mean the man had died in whatever had brought all the others running back to the warehouse? Xander watched the ghost hunter scoot farther up the strut before taking out a ghost blowtorch and starting to chant. A rune. There was a rune there.

Xander blinked, and suddenly the whole warehouse lit up. Runes and ghost figures painting runes filled the room, and Xander could see a ghost image of Spike crossing the floor, runes lighting up like Christmas trees as he crossed them.

Fuck. Giles and his crew were way more badass than Xander's Giles. Actually, boobytrapping the headquarters was so smart that Xander suddenly wondered why they hadn't ever done that. They could have saved themselves some drama if they'd set up wards around Buffy's various houses.

Xander started moving closer, holding on to the upper struts as he crab-walked closer. There was another rune just to Spike's right, but he was focused on the one in front of him. He hadn't seen the other.

"Get back," Spike hissed when Xander got close.

"Runes. They're an alarm system."

"Think I figured that out on my own. Now stop before you go tripping into one." Spike had left snark behind and he snarled the words with real anger. He didn't want to go to war with Giles. Xander could respect that.

"There's one in front of you and one about five feet to the right of you on the same strut," Xander said.

The yellow vanished from Spike's gaze and he studied Xander. "You can see 'em?" Oddly, Spike sounded like he might actually believe Xander.

Xander nodded. Looking at the roof structure, he could see the runes start to glow.

"Do you want an engraved invitation, ya nit? If you can see them, get us over them," Spike said, waving his hand toward the far end of the warehouse.

Xander nodded and moved slowly over to Spike's position, trying to slip around him. Spike caught him by the waist, holding him firmly as Xander passed. Xander's vision flashed like an overdeveloped photograph, and then the sense of there being too much light faded and he could see the runes again. Moving forward, he carefully picked his way over the glowing marks, detouring entirely around one that seemed to send up a soft mist that rose from the metal beam to drift slowly to the corrugated roof.

By the time Xander had worked his way over to the end of the warehouse, Xander could feel his balance start to fail a little. The world wobbled, and then Spike was at his back, slipping his arm around Xander's stomach. Xander's vision flashed again, and he sucked in a deep breath.

"Almost there, pet," Spike whispered. Xander nodded and looked back toward the rear of the warehouse. No one was in sight, and he started down the wall as fast as he could. Not surprisingly, Spike dropped down, landing gracefully on the ground before moving toward the door. Xander ended up dropping the last few feet, but he nearly fell on his face as the world wobbled.

Spike turned, and in a flash he'd moved to a spot in front of Xander, bending over. Just about the time Spike's shoulder touched Xander's stomach, Xander opened his mouth to ask bloodbreath what he thought he was doing. However, another wave of dizziness hit him, and Xander found himself tumbling forward, only to land across Spike's shoulder. He had the vague sense of movement as Spike headed for the door, but then the darkness swallowed Xander.


	8. Just how do these two universes fit together?

Xander woke slowly, his head stuffed with cotton. Or snot. It might be snot. Either way, his head definitely had too much of something in it. It felt hot and overstuffed and achy. Groaning, Xander tried to roll onto his side and that was his first hint that something was horribly, terrifyingly wrong. Something pulled tight against his wrist, preventing him from turning.

Cracking one eye open, Xander looked down to see a strap over his chest, and when he pulled at his other hand, that was also pinned to the bed. Okay, arms pinned to his side was bad, not as bad as pinned over his head, though. And whatever held him was soft, like padded leather. That was both more comfortable and more disturbing than handcuffs.

A quick tug at his legs revealed that his ankles were also cuffed, and this was so not good. He was in the world's tackiest hotel with hula dancer wall paper and rattan furniture that had escaped from the set of the Golden Girls, and he was chained to bed under a blindingly orange bedspread. This was perfect.

"Right then, you're awake."

"Spike?" Xander turned his head to find Spike leaning back in a chair, one boot propped up on the edge of the Xander’s bed. Worse, he stared down with a predatory look that definitely didn't make Xander feel any better.

"I'm not the sodding Easter bunny."

"Wrong ears for it." Xander grinned, but he didn't even get one of Spike's famous eye rolls. nope, one eyebrow twitch, and Spike was right back to his cold-hard bastard look. "Um, is something wrong? And actually, I'm hoping something is wrong because if nothing is wrong and you've just taken to tying me to beds, this is a little awkward."

Spike let the front feet of his chair hit the floor with a loud thump, and then he leaned forward. "You tell me."

Xander stared up. Okay, Spike could be a little hard to read sometimes. He had the whole enigma thing going for him, and he worked it well. However, this was a little too mysterious, even for him. "Um, what I am telling you?" Xander finally asked.

"I don't know. Wot do you need to tell me?"

Xander felt a little like he’d fallen into the middle of an Abbot and Costello routine. "If this is a riddle, we're going to be here for a really, really long time. Longer than human bladders can actually hold out sort of long time,” Xander warned.

"Do you have a human bladder?"

"What? Okay, I'm pretty sure I haven't had any alien organ transplants lately, so the answer to that would he a ‘hell yes.’ Seriously, Spike, what is wrong with you?”

Spike leaned closer and studied him so intensely that Xander squirmed. "Bloody hell, you don't know, do you?"

"I never was exactly good with riddles, so no. I don't know. All I know is that you're being weirdly presoulish, and presoul you scared the snot out of me. Well, actually souled you is pretty scary too, but the snot doesn't come out around souled you."

Spike snorted and leaned back in his chair. "It's you, alright. I don't think there's a git in any universe that can string together as many illogical thoughts into one sentence."

"It's a skill," Xander agreed with a grin. "And I'm still feeling weirdly unlooplike here, Spike. Would you like to explain why you've suddenly decided to go for a little Xander-bondage?" Xander felt the heat rush to his face as he said that. Bondage definitely implied things that he had totally not been planning to imply. Xander expected Spike torture over that little slip. He waited for the gleeful teasing, but instead Spike completely ignored the opportunity to verbally humiliate him. Something was definitely wrong.

"Would you like to explain why you're suddenly breathing optional?"

Xander blinked as his brain ran that one through a second time, just to make sure he’d heard it right. “Did you say… I'm what? Okay, breathing is not optional, and you are not making any sense."

"Really? Spike sucked air through his front teeth, which was never a good sign. That meant that Spike was feeling particularly confident in his ability to verbally or literally eviscerate someone. "So in that warehouse, you didn't decide to stop breathing?"

"Uh, no," Xander said in his most “no-duh” voice, and he might have said more, only Spike pounced. His hands came up to Xander's face, covering his mouth and nose. Xander squirmed and bucked and tried to bite Spike's palm, but he didn't have a chance of winning a fight under the best of circumstances. Tied down to a bed, there really wasn't much doubt as to the outcome.

Xander braced himself for the coming unconsciousness as his lungs struggled and failed to bring in any air. And he waited. And waited. And the colors in the world started fading, a mist rose and ghost hands began to appear from the fog, but other than hallucinations, Xander was definitely not reacting to a total loss of air.

"I'd suspect you weren't my Xander, but Willow's tracking spell took alternate realities into account and from the stupid look on your face, you truly didn't know you'd joined the unbreathing masses." Spike suddenly let go, and Xander sucked in a breath that he really didn't need.

"Holy shit," Xander whispered.

"Not much holy about it, pet. So then, start talking."

A wave of lightheadedness crashed over Xander, leaving him clutching at the sheets under him. He had no idea if hunger, lack of air, or a sudden redefining of reality caused it, but he definitely didn't feel up to anything other than twenty of thirty years of healthy denial. "Any chance I could get something to eat first?"

"I don't know. Do you plan to eat me?"

Xander started to laugh, but the absolutely cold look on Spike's face made the sound stick in his throat. "Um. What?"

"In that warehouse, you drained energy off me, and suddenly you were throwing yourself from beam to beam like a regular demon, luv. So you tell me, what exactly do you plan to eat?"

"I'd thought maybe cheeseburgers," Xander said weakly. "Seriously? Like are you sure you weren't imagining things? You know, a flashback to the land of crazy Spike?" After the words came out, Xander realized that he probably didn't want to call the guy who'd tied him to a bed "crazy." Well, not until after he was untied, anyway.

Spike eyed him for a long time before going over to a chair and picking up a plastic grocery sack. “I've got cold burritos or a sack of apples."

"Burritos. Yum," Xander quickly said. Spike rolled his eyes.

"The shite you eat, I'm surprised you survived this long. I'm not untying you until you can explain what's going on, so you'll just have to live with getting fed."

"Awkward-land."

"Suck it up, Harris. I'm not letting a baby demon who doesn't even have a quarter century under his bloody belt eat me."

"I didn't—" Xander stopped when Spike's eyes flashed yellow. "Fine, but I didn't mean to," he amended his protest.

"That's the soddin' terrifying part. You're not in control of whatever's happening, so until I get some straight answers out of you, I plan to treat you like a fledge in bloodlust."

Xander's face flushed as he thought of all those books of Giles' that he wasn't supposed to read and he read anyway. He knew what Angelus had done to Dru, and what Darla had done to Angelus and what Angelus had done to Spike. Fledges definitely got the fuzzy and sexual end of the lollipop of life.

"Oh for... I'm not a monster, you pillock, and I don't plan to treat you like MY fledge." Spike dropped into the chair next to Xander's bed.

"Hey, I didn't say anything."

"It was written on your face clear enough." Tearing open the wrapper, Spike pulled a chunk of burrito off and when Xander opened his mouth to defend himself, Spike shoved the food in. Xander glared as he chewed, but he really couldn't do much else.

"So then, a quick update." Spike smiled, clearly enjoying his ability to fill Xander's mouth every time he tried to join the conversation. "You went missing out of your room. Seeing as how Willow has that place sewn up tighter than a nun's britches, we figured there was something magical going on. Luckily, she'd put a tracker on you after you came home to visit from Africa and that let her track you here."

"Mmmhmph." Xander had a whole lot to say about that. Willow tracking him without his permission felt very invady, and he had issues with people invading his privacy. However, Spike kept shoving food in, so Xander kept his lips shut.

“She tried hauling your sorry arse home, but it seems like something was holding you here. Since we’re running pretty quiet, I offered to come and babysit while Willow figures out why her magic is going all wonky when she tries to access this one dimension.”

Xander chewed as he thought about Eve and her insistence that Xander had to be her new son. Did Eve have the mojo to block Willow? And clearly someone who was the mother of all monsters did have some street cred, but still. Blocking Willow was kind of scary.

“Right then. You look like you’ve come to some conclusions. Spit ‘em out.” Spike had shoved about half the burrito in, but he wrapped the rest up and set it on the bedside table. Xander chewed as fast as he could because he definitely wanted to talk to Spike about this stuff. Maybe Spike would be able to understand Eve’s game, although Xander was definitely not ever admitting how good it had felt to be near her.

“There was a woman named Eve.”

“A woman. Bloody hell, Harris. You and women are a dangerous combination. Between the ones that want to cut off your bits and the ones that want to take you home and tie you to a bed, you should know to steer clear of them by now.”

“I did ask Willow to gay me up at one point,” Xander admitted. “I do know my track record stinks, but apparently this one wanted me for a son.”

Spike frowned.

“Yeah, that was my reaction. I don’t really have a good track record with parents any more than with women, so having a strange woman want to parent me was feeling a little not-so-goodish. But she said she needed me to be her alpha and—”

“She what?” Spike’s hand darted out and caught Xander’s arm in a hard grip.

“Ouch.”

“Focus, nit. Did she call you an alpha?”

“That’s what I said.”

“You say a lot of things that are only tangentially related to reality.”

Xander frowned. “What?”

And that earned him a Spike eye roll. “There are some old legends, pet. Real old. So, are you one hundred percent sure she called you an alpha?”

Xander’s stomach did a flip. From the expression on Spike’s face, he was about to be totally and completely screwed if he said yes, but she had. She’d called him an alpha. Xander slowly nodded.

Spike exploded off his chair. “Fucking hell. I swear, when we get home I’m chaining you to my bed so I can keep an eye on you. You can’t even be trusted to sit in your own room in the most secure house on the fucking planet.” Spike paced furiously, only getting a few steps in the small room before he had to wheel around and reverse direction.

“Spike, you’re freaking me out here.”

Spike stopped and looked at him, and he was in full demon face—eyes, teeth, ridges and all. Yep, that was one cranky demon. “I know you weren’t an alpha before, so you tell me what she said.”

Xander repeated as much of the strange conversation as he remembered, and Spike slowly sank down into a chair. The demon features faded, and by the time Xander described how he’d accidentally killed the murdering truck driver, Spike looked utterly exhausted. It kind of scared Xander.

“Of all the blokes who’d kill to get chosen, and she’s got to get her claws into you.” Spike ran a hand over his face and sighed.

“Um, ‘her’ who? Eve? You know her?”

“If she’s Tiamat the way she said she was, yeah. She’s been in our world.”

“Slayed? Banished?” Xander guessed.

Spike snorted. “Story has it she got bored and left to find a new world. Humans were so thrilled to be rid of her they started telling stories about how their hero had ripped her apart and shoved her body down into the void for the world to rest on. Not bloody likely; she was one of the old ones, like Illyria.”

“Your blue friend with the delusions of godhood?” Xander asked. He’d never met Illyria, but she’d taken over one of the Angel crew and apparently had some scary powers. Xander had suggested she’d be an interesting person to meet exactly once, and Buffy had nearly given birth to a litter of technicolored demons.

“She didn’t have delusions, luv. She’d been a god, and Tiamat was another of her sort. Some said Tiamat was the oldest of them, the mother. The others couldn’t find a way to destroy Illyria, only lock her away, so the odds of them destroying Tiamat aren’t exactly good.”

“That’s what she meant by calling herself the mother of all monsters,” Xander said softly.

Spike nodded. “Seems like. The Watchers have their legends about how the last demon on earth bit a human and passed a bit of the demon on before being banished, that it was some last curse on humanity. I don’t know a vampire alive who believes that. Most of the old ones, like old bat-faced Heinrich, talked about the alphs.”

“Alphas?” Xander guessed.

“Alpha, the first letter of the Greek alphabet came from the Phoenician letter alph, which the humans lifted straight from a demonic language.”

“Your geek’s showing,” Xander warned Spike, teasing to lighten up the mood. It didn’t work. In fact, Spike’s glare made everything so much very worse.

“Alph means ‘ox.’ They were the first children, demons not as strong or as pure as old ones, but able to mutate into new forms, strong enough to defeat about anyone who went up against them, and capable of creating children they could control. Old bat-face always claimed he could hear the distant voice of the alph who had created the vampires.”

“Oh this is not good.” Xander’s stomach rumbled as the burrito threatened to come back up. She’d turned him into a really scary monster. This was so much worse than getting vamped.

“You never make it easy, do you?” Spike asked.

“Hey, I’m the one who got kidnapped and demonified. I think I’m the one with the right to complain.”

“I think we’re both in a mess,” Spike corrected him. “If Eve’s turned you into an alph, there’s no soddin’ way Willow can pull you back through into our dimension. It would be like trying to pull a musk ox though a hole big enough for a rat terrier.”

“Hey, you fit thought that dimensional hole too, buddy. Watch who you’re calling a rat terrier.”

“Says the man tied to a bloody bed.” Spike made a face. “No offense, Harris, but you don’t have the right skill set to be a demon.”

“You think I don’t know this? I suck at being a demon. I killed some guy by accident. My first big move was to track down a hunter and say, ‘Hey, here I am.’ I didn’t even know I fed on you and I definitely didn’t know I’d stopped breathing. I may have been a questionable human, but you and I can agree that I am totally incompetent as a demon,” Xander hurried to agree. Strangely, that earned him a crooked smile from Spike.

“Right then, so we’ve got two goals. When Willow gets in contact, we try to see if we can undo whatever Eve did. If she tapped into some magic you have from being around the hellmouth, maybe Red can block that. Second, we need to teach you how to be a demon.”

Xander shook his head. “Oh no. I am not taking demon lessons, bloodbreath.”

“If you don’t, you may wake up with bloodbreath yourself, Harris. If you’re going to have powers, I’m going to make sure you can control them well enough that you don’t feed off me… or any innocent bystanders.” Spike got an almost gleeful cruelty on his face. Xander knew that look all too well. “You’ve got a whole lot to learn.” Spike wiggled his eyebrows and Xander just let his head fall back onto the pillow before closing his eyes.

“I am so screwed,” he said softly.

Spike laughed.


	9. Practice makes perfect...or at least less horrible

"Okay, try again, and this time don’t cock it up,” Spike warned.

Xander glared at Spike but he held his breath. It was better than having Spike shove a pillow over his face again. The cheap hotel pillows were seriously itchy.

Xander held his breath as the second ticked past. In just a few minutes, Xander's lungs started getting twitchy, even if technically they didn't need oxygen. As the time stretched, the ghosts started to form out of the motes of dust. Every time Xander did this, human Spike... which would be William... always appeared first. With his soft curls and wire glasses, he was definitely not the same as Spike. But at the same time, Xander could almost see parts of Spike in him... or him in Spike. Xander watched as William drifted around Spike, his gaze always on his alter ego.

Maybe William was the soul.

Spike interrupted his train of thought. "Right then, are they back?"

"Yep," Xander said, and instinct made him breathe again and the ghosts scattered.

With a sigh, Spike glared at him. "You bloody little twit. You did that on purpose."

"Hey, it's normal. I've spent over two decades of breathing."

"And every time you breathe, you stop using those powers of yours. How can we test this if you bollocks it up every time?" Spike leaned close, yellow eyes glaring at Xander, and that was not a good expression.

Xander pulled at the restraints. "Oh, I don't know. You could untie me and we could do something like walk down to the cafe and test it in the real world."

"After you tried to eat me? Not bloody likely, mate." Spike snorted at he whirled around and headed for the hotel window to look outside again. Yep, the bleached one was twitchy about something, not that he was going to tell Xander. Xander could inherit all the super-powered Alpha coolness he wanted, and Spike was still going to treat him like a giant goober. It was like some universe rule of cool, as in Xander couldn’t have any.

"I never tried to eat you,” Xander complained.

Spike kept his attention focused out the window, watching from the crack between the puke green panels. "You fed off my energy."

"Not intentionally."

Spike snorted. "Right then, that makes it all better. I'll still be soddin' dead, but it won't count because you won't have meant it.” Glancing over his shoulder, Spike demanded, “Exactly where did you learn logic, Harris?"

"Hey, it's better than you. You were trying to eat me all though high school."

"I was not." Spike actually had the nerve to look offended.

"Yes, you were."

"Were not."

"You hit me over the head and dragged me to your secret lair. A secret vampire lair. That wasn't exactly friendly."

Spike turned and gave Xander his full attention. "I planned to kill you, you nit, not eat you."

"Oh, that makes it so much better." Xander rolled his eyes. He knew food groups, and Spike had looked at Xander like he was the sugariest most fattening food group in the world. He looked at Xander like Xander was that guilty late night snack that you didn’t want to admit you inhaled in one sitting. Actually, Angel had always given him the same look, which explained Xander’s Angel-issues.

"Bloody right, it does make a difference. Eating someone when you know their name is just rude. That's the sort of shite Angelus gets up to."

"Oh yeah, and you only kill people you don’t know. That’s totally better." Xander sighed and stared at the ceiling. "Why are we fighting about this again?"

Spike crossed the room and sat down in the chair next to Xander. "Because you're a stubborn git who won't hold his breath long enough to test out how far this streak of demonic goes. You're a bloody alph, love. I've never even met one of the old one's children. Even old Heinrich was a twelfth century vamp, and the old ones had been gone a good five thousand years before that. We don't know if you're going to lose control and start feeding on the world."

"Spike, the only think I have a craving for is Cheetos. I'm having a Cheetos craving that could drop a horse."

"I'm not going to the market again."

"But Spike...." Xander let his voice trail off in a whine.

"Not listening," Spike sing-songed.

"But I'm seriously hungry for Cheetos. Come on, I'm dying here."

"Forget it."

"But my knickers are really bunchy, here," Xander tried.

That earned him another Spike glare. "You don't have permission to use any British phrases. Ever."

Xander gave Spike a cheeky grin. "Hey, I'm an alpha. How do you plan to stop me?"

"Sit on you," Spike threatened.

“You can try, bloodbreath.” Before Xander could say any more, Spike had leaped on him, straddling his waist and bracing his hands on Xander's shoulders, pinning him even more firmly to the bed, as if being tied hand and foot wasn't enough.

"Don't care wot you are, you'll bloody listen to me before we have an accident." Spike snarled the words, all humor gone. Xander froze, captured by Spike's yellow gaze. For long seconds they stared at each other. The ghosts began to form, first William and then Darla, for some reason. She didn't normally show up, but she wandered the edges of the room, giving Xander that superior gaze that made it clear she considered him a lower life form. Minutes passed, and Xander flinched as Spike's fingers dug into the soft spot of his shoulders. Spike's victims started to drift through the shadows, half-specters that faded in and out of reality.

Spike sat up, stretching his neck from one side to another. Xander tried very hard to not notice that Spike was sitting right on his crotch. The pressure was doing very odd things that Xander really didn't want to think about. “Do not breathe. You bloody nod or shake your head, but if you so much as think about breathing, you’re going to find out how a sire disciplines a recalcitrant fledge, understand?” Pointing a thin finger in Xander’s face, Spike growled his words.

Xander nodded. Souled Spike could inspire terror just as well as pre-souled Spike. Xander learned something new every day.

"Right then. Is William back?”

Xander nodded.

“Is Darla here?”

Xander sucked in a shocked breath.

Spike’s eyes turned yellow.

“Sorry!” Xander hurried to say. “In my defense, that was a little out of left field. I didn’t know you’d guess that she’d showed up.” Xander stopped. “Wait. How did you know she was here?”

“Simple, pet. She wasn’t actually here.” Spike ran his tongue along the inside of his lower lip. At some point in the last few years, Xander had learned to read Spike fluently because that meant that he was feeling superior.

“I really hope she’s not literally here because that whole schoolgirl thing she had going kind of creeps me out." Xander shivered as he thought about Darla’s Catholic schoolgirl outfit. There was something really wrong about a vicious vamp dressed up like a little girl. Then again, vampires probably thought it was really unfair to have an ass-kicking slayer called Buffy.

"Once a whore..." Spike let his words trail off. "So, what was she doing?"

"Do you mean other than looking at me like I'm a bug?"

Spike nodded and leaned back, which put more pressure in places that Xander really didn't want to think about. "Good."

"Um, is that a good that Darla thinks I'm a bug or good that you can scare me into breathing?”

“I’m trying to get you to focus.”

“Yeah, yeah, Xander sucks on the demon front. I already admitted that, Spike. So, how did you know Darla would show up?”

Spike turned and leaped off the bed before going back to the window. “Because I was thinking about her.”

“And…” Xander let his word trail off in a clear invitation for Spike to continue. Knowing Spike, if Xander demanded an explanation, Spike would take great pleasure in ignoring him.

“You’re seeing thoughts, luv. I think about Darla, and she appears in your visions.”

“No, I’m not. I mean, every time I hold my breath, you have all these victims…” Xander stopped when Spike turned and looked at him with an utterly dead expression.

Swallowing, Xander tried to mentally sort through that fact. Angel, sure. Angel was obsessed with his crimes. But Spike wasn’t broody-boy. He was strong and confident and definitely not haunted by a hundred years of murder. That’s just not how Xander saw Spike. But if Xander was seeing Spike’s thoughts…

“All the time?” Xander asked softly.

Spike turned and glared. “I was a bad man, never denied it.”

“But you think about it? All the time?”

Spike made a strange face. “Don’t seem right to pretend they didn’t exist. I know what I did. I don’t need you talking about it.”

“Right. No talking.” Xander clamped his mouth closed as the need to talk about this nearly overwhelmed him. How could Spike think about all his victims all the time and not go bug-ass crazy? Turning his back, Spike went back to watching out the window. Right, that was a way safer topic.

“What’s with the window-watching, Spike?”

“Bloody hell, Harris. I broke you out of a hunter’s lair. I’m fairly sure Rupert’s coming after us.”

“Giles?”

Spike left the window and stood over Xander. “You’re a demon, luv. You’re a soddin’ alph. And this Rupert Giles is a mite bit more militant than ours, and ours isn’t exactly a fluffy bunny. Exactly what do you think they’re going to do when they find you gone?”

“Um, say ‘good riddance’?” Xander said with a hopeful look. Spike’s cold glare pretty much said everything that needed to be said on that theory. “Should we be running, Spike? I mean, I really don’t want to fight with Giles, and let’s face it, seeing ghosts is not exactly a great superpower.”

“And draining creatures of their lifeforce.”

Xander cringed. “I’m trying to repress that one.”

“That’s what worries me.” Spike ran a finger through his hair. “You’re not safe on your own, but we’re not safe here. We wait too long and we’re going to end up having to go up against this universe’s Rupert.”

“Maybe not. Maybe he won’t find us,” Xander said. Spike didn’t even bother answering. “Right, because no way is Giles the obsessive do-anything-to-get-his-demon sort,” Xander added wearily. “Okay, problem one is that you won’t unlock me from the bed. And while the lack of having to pee is both convenient and freaking me out a little, this is not going to work long-term if we’re running from hunters.” With that, Xander pulled on the shackles.

Sucking in his cheeks, Spike spent a long time considering Xander. Until the ghosts showed up, Xander didn’t even realize he’d started holding his breath. Angel was there… or Angelus anyway. He stood to the side of Spike looking at him with this hungry predator’s expression that made a cold shiver go up Xander’s spine. The victims were relegated to the edges of the vision, but Angelus seemed to grow larger and larger, his hand coming up to catch Spike around the neck.

“Um, Spike, what are you thinking about?” Xander asked, and for a half second, Angelus turned that scary leer toward Xander before he faded out of existence.

“If you can’t control those powers, you’re going to kill someone else,” Spike said.

“And that would requiring thinking about Angelus why?” There was definitely something rattling around in Spike’s head.

“Now you bloody use your powers.” With a dramatic sigh, Spike dropped into the chair.

“Um, is this something that’s going to freak me out?”

Spike pursed his lips.

“Oh god. How bad is this?”

Leaning back, Spike propped his foot on the edge of the bed. “You get out of hand, and people are going to die. If we’re on the road, you need to listen to me. No questions, no hesitation, pet.”

“And that makes you think about Angelus?” Xander could feel sweat gather along his spine because this was feeling like very dangerous territory.

“I’ll do what I have to, Harris.” Spike leaned in close, his boot pressing on the edge of the bed so that Xander tilted toward him. “I won’t have you turning evil, and if that means that I need to keep you in hand until you have control over these powers, I have no problem with that.”

“But Buffy…”

“Isn’t here. Besides, seeing as how you’re a demon now, that puts you in my court. So, let’s talk about the ground rules if I’m going to let you off that bed.”

Xander swallowed. This was so not how he’d imagined his rescue going. Totally not. Actually, Spike’s rescues looked a whole lot like Spike’s kidnappings.


	10. Road trip

Xander pulled at the ropes around his wrists. “This really isn’t necessary, Spike.” The heavy rope led down between Xander’s legs and attached to the bottom of the car seat. It wouldn’t be so bad except that one, the rope itched and two, Spike’s driving was as scary as ever.

“Better than having you snack on the local population.”

“Which I’m not going to do.”

Spike took time away from watching the road to really glare at Xander.

“Road. Road. Spike, there’s a road there. Crashes. Death.”

With a snort, Spike turned his attention back to the road. “We’re demons. Short of the car blowing up, a crash isn’t going to do us much harm.”

“You, Spike. A crash isn’t going to do you much harm. Me? I’m thinking I’m still pretty vulnerable. There’s no evidence that I’m anything other than Xander with a few upgrades.”

“You’re an alph, a demon created by one of the old ones. Do you really think a car accident is going to stop you?”

Xander frowned. Put that way, it did sound a little questionable. “I would rather not test out your theory. This is me, Spike. Think about all the bad luck I’ve had over the years.” Actually, Xander’s well documented bad luck had actually gotten him driven out of four separate villages in Africa. Witch doctors backed up by locals wielding machetes had chased him all the way to the next village so he could infect them with his bad luck.

“Let’s see,” Spike said. “You mouthed off to Angelus and lived. You got between me and my love spell and lived. You went up against an ascended demon and lived. You got magical syphilis and lived. You bloody went up against the First evil and soddin’ lived. You met an old one and got adopted, you git. That doesn’t sound like a bad track record. Hell, Harris, I’m not sure what you could survive with Tiamat’s power in you.” Spike actually sounded a little disgusted by that.

“You just listed about a dozen things that most people never have to suffer through.”

“And lots of happy meals in that little town never survived having even one of those things happen. Stop feeling sorry for yourself Harris or I’m going to start using another piece of bondage equipment.” Xander opened his mouth to answer before it occurred to him exactly what Spike might mean. Then he closed his mouth so fast that his teeth clicked.

Leaning back into the seat, Xander watched another sign for Chicago go by the window. “Bully,” Xander said softly. He spent some time seriously working on his visions, but practice was boring. He hadn’t liked practicing math equations as a kid, and this was feeling vaguely homework. “Why weren’t you surprised that I’m back to having two eyes?” Xander suddenly demanded.

“That’s what has your panties in a bunch?” Spike sounded incredulous.

“Hey, I went from one eye to two eyes, so you can’t say you weren’t surprised.”

“Red offered to replace that missing eye years ago.”

“Yeah, and I said I didn’t want a magicked eye.”

Spike took a long time to answer. “First, I was more focused on saving your sorry arse. Second, from the time I walked in that room, I could tell that something had happened. You smelled different.”

“I’d been locked in a room with no bathtub. Different is one way to put it.”

“Bloody hell, pet. I lived in your basement.”

“And?”

“And you weren’t exactly well acquainted with the washing machine.”

Xander snickered as he recalled Spike’s own adventured with washing machines.

“At least I tried to wash my kit,” Spike snapped, so Xander was pretty sure he was remembering the same disaster. “But you went months without washing those sheets, so the basement had more of your stink than it did mold. I know your scent, and it’s shifted. I was more concerned about that. I thought for a second that you were some sort of shifter playing Xander, but then you opened your mouth.”

“So the whole eye thing worried you less than my smell?”

“I’ve known blokes that could change their eyes out.”

“Seriously? Okay, that’s gross.” Xander made a face. He wouldn’t even use a glass eye because the thought of shoving things in the hole made his stomach churn. Spike didn’t have another comment, so Xander spent a little more time watching the empty road. Spike was using the smaller highways and at two or three in the morning, there wasn’t much traffic. Mostly it was farms, farms, little clusters of houses at crossroads and cows. There were a lot of cows in this part of the country. There wasn’t much to keep Xander’s attention, and Spike had firmly vetoed the country music station, so conversation was all they had. Xander tried again.

“So, do you think Willow’s going to be able to get us home?” Xander pulled against the rope. Fact was, Willow could get Spike home any time. He was the only one stuck. Spike grunted. Xander waited a respectable period of time before he tried yet another tactic. “So, do you want me to read more of those Supernatural books to you as you drive?”

“Bloody hell, no,” Spike snapped. “If those two hunters are real, they need a soddin’ keeper more than you do, Harris. Makes my gut ache the way those fools go rushing in like idiots.”

“Hey! I like them.”

“You bloody would. They’re all heart and not enough sense between them ta keep out of trouble.”

“They fight evil, and they don’t even have cool slayer powers.”

“They’re pawns in this war and they don’t have the good sense to take themselves out of the fight.”

Xander swallowed. That sounded a little ominous. “You can’t mean they should…”

Spike rolled his eyes. “Hang it up and take one corner of the world ta protect instead of shoving all over the country where they’re vulnerable. That Bobby has the good sense to settle in a place where he has a network to protect him, but those two boys are running around the country trying to con everyone they meet. Their luck is bound to run out.”

Xander frowned. He liked the way they weren’t stuck in some stupid little town with exactly one place to go at night. Although Sunnydale did have places other than the Bronze, most of them catered to things that ate humans, making them a little less than safe.

“They’re fighting evil.”

“Evil’s everywhere, luv. And if you start fucking a demon, you know you’re on the wrong path.”

“Hey!” Xander protested. “Ahn—”

“She’d already hung up her horns before you dated her.”

“And Buffy dated lots of demons,” Xander shot right back. If Sam had found a little love in the arms of Ruby, Xander got that. Totally. Sometimes it was hard to not fall for demons because they were sexy and hot and really sexy. Xander glanced over at Spike. Yep, wrong gender and he was still sexy as hell. That was one demonic power Xander would like to get, but he doubted it. He’d pretty much been a professional goofy boy since age twelve.

Spike sucked air through his front teeth. Exactly. Xander smiled in triumph at winning that round, but two seconds later, he frowned.

“Wait. Did I just defend demons?”

“You’re one of us now.” Spike’s cheekbones got sharper as he smirked. “But then I think Buffy has more than a little demon in her. Those two Winchester boys are playing with fire if they think they can swim in that end of the pool. Enough about them. I have my hands full with you. So, get to practicing.”

Xander opened his mouth, and Spike’s hand snapped up, a finger pointed right at Xander’s nose. “You’ve tried avoidin’ working with your powers about every which way you can. Enough is enough. One more word and you’re gagged.” And Spike didn’t even smile. Xander closed his mouth. Practice. Right.

Holding his breath, he watched while William appeared in the mist, a pad of paper and a pencil in his hand as he peered at Xander through his glasses and recorded little scratches before sucking on the end of his pencil. A strangled laugh slipped out of Xander as he realized that he was seeing Spike’s interest in him, Spike’s geeky science-obsessed self. William totally would have been one to pal around with Willow.

Spike mumbled some odd curses, and Xander decided to go with being quiet as a church mouse. While he didn’t think Spike would gag him, he hadn’t thought Spike could strap him down to a bed or tie his hands, either. Clearly the rules had changed some.

A bloody hand clawed at Spike’s face a second before the rest of the victim came into view. Xander jerked back as he realized he knew her. She was Sheila something, the hard-core bad girl who Spike and Drusilla had eaten when they first showed up in Sunnydale. Why would Spike be thinking of her? Xander lost himself in his thoughts until Spike shouted his name. “Harris!”

Blinking, Xander looked at Spike. He was getting good at the not breathing by accident thing because William continued to sit with his body inside the car’s dash as he took notes.

“Right then, start to slowly breathe, but don’t lose the visions.”

“Um, breathing makes them go away,” Xander pointed out. The second he started talking, his lungs insisted on breathing in and the specters vanished.

“I’m going to gag you, Harris,” Spike growled. “That demon mother of yours told you that you were going to choose the nature of your powers, so you’ll start controlling this or I’m going to take a more direct approach to this siring shite.”

Xander felt the blood leave his face at that threat. “No need to get cranky.”

“Then follow my orders without bollocking up.”

“Right. No more bollocks.” Xander made a show out of taking a breath and holding it. This time Angelus appeared even before William. Yep, Spike was so not joking. Spike kept driving while Angelus made completely inappropriate sex faces. Slowly Angelus turned his head until he considered Xander. Slowly, Angelus moved closer, his mouth moving, although Xander didn’t get much more than ‘boyo.’

Xander waited until Angelus’ hand came up, reaching for him, and then Xander blurted out. “Oh no. No, no, no and hell to the no!” The second he took a breath, Angelus vanished.

“What the fuck are you doing, Harris?” Spike demanded in a tone that made it clear he was not even joking this time. He jerked the wheel and sent the car flying off toward the shoulder.

“Hey! Angelus. I breathed on purpose because that was me saying ‘no’ to your Angelusy thoughts.”

Spike slammed on the brakes so hard that Xander flew forward. With his hands tied, Xander couldn’t catch himself on his dash, so his face and the car just sort of met in the middle. Xander yelped as stars filled his vision, but Spike had already thrown the car into park and reached between the seats into the back.

“Not cool! Seriously, Spike, where did you learn how to drive? Maybe we should, I don’t know, take a train?”

“Right, you with all your untrained demon powers on a train full of happy meals. Harris, you’ll start listening to me or I’m going to make Angelus seem like a fluffy puppy. Clear?” Spike dug around in the stuff in the backseat.

Xander swallowed, not able to answer as he considered just how far Spike might take this training stuff. “I didn’t want the ghost Angelus to touch me.”

“Then you use your powers to stop him. If you don’t get control of yourself, you’re going to make a fatal mistake, and it’s not likely that you’ll be the one dying. Get that through your head.”

“I know that.”

“Then act like it. You’re not some helpless tyke, Harris.” Spike pushed himself back up, a red ball in hand. “You’ve got a dark side, luv, and we both know it. You want to go home? Really? Tell me, the first time some random bloke hurt your Willow’s feelings, wot do you think you’d do?”

“Make fun of his hair?” Xander guessed. In the past, that’d been his first, second, and third lines of defense, followed by insulting stupid accents and bad fashion.

Spike gave him a cold look, and Xander dropped his gaze. Okay, if he had the power to do something more drastic, maybe he’d throw a punch or two. “I wouldn’t kill them,” Xander said softly.

“Maybe you wouldn’t mean to the first or even the second times, but you’d do it, luv. You’d decide that if others struck at you and yours, that you’d strike back. The only reason you didn’t gut half of Sunnydale is that you didn’t have the power to. Chances are, you have the power now.”

Xander glared at Spike. “You’re exaggerating.” So far, the whole demon thing had been less than impressive. Xander was still the loser getting captured, requiring rescue, and generally getting pushed around by his friends. Very little had actually changed.

“You’re an alph,” Spike said firmly. “It’s likely you’ll develop some pretty substantial powers, innit? I’ll see you get control of these powers or I’m going to get clear of this entire dimension before all those little hurts and injuries you carry around start to fester.”

Xander started to shake his head, but Spike reached out and caught his chin. “Don’t,” he said firmly.

“But Spike—”

Spike’s fingers tightened until they pressed painfully against Xander’s jaw. “Unless you want to remember what it’s like to kill an orphanage full of fucking anklebiters because that’s what your friends and your bloody lover want, you’ll get control, Harris. You’ll get control now before the needs overpower your common sense. Now open your fucking mouth.”

The anger poured off Spike, at least Xander thought it was anger. However, he’d held his breath long enough that the visions appeared, and dead and mangled children littered the car. Xander started to gag, which was helpful because it forced him to breathe. Spike held up the ball in front of Xander’s face, and when Xander opened his mouth to promise… well… anything, Spike pushed it in.

“Now close your bloody mouth and keep it closed. Seal those lips, Harris. Seal them and don’t you dare even think of spitting that out. Because right now, I’m starting to question how serious you are about getting control of these powers, and you do not what to know what I’ll do if I start thinking you’re a danger to yourself or the rest of the soddin’ world. Clear?” Spike demanded, his fingers still pressing deep into Xander’s face.

Xander nodded. The ball filled his mouth, but it wasn’t painful. Sinking his teeth into it, the rubber squished down until he could close his lips over it. Okay, it was a little humiliating, but Xander and humiliation were old friends. For a long time, Spike stared into face for some time before he snorted and finally let go of Xander’s face. Xander leaned down far enough that he could rub his chin with his bound hands.

“Soddin’ little nit,” Spike muttered before he put the car back into gear. “Practice with those visions,” Spike ordered.

Xander flinched. Right now he didn’t want to know what Spike was thinking.

With a loud sigh, Spike flicked on the radio to a classic rock station. “I ever tell you about the time I saw the Sex Pistols and the Clash in London? There was a two day festival in 1976, and I got stoned off my arse with Johnny Rotten.” Spike grinned and ran a tongue along the inside of his lower lip. “Now that man had talent.”

Xander thought Spike was doing him a favor by turning to more positive thoughts, but then a nice looking young man with bleached hair, earrings, and blue eyes appeared between Spike’s legs. Waggling his strawberry blond eyebrows, he turned his attention to Spike’s crotch. Oh boy. Clearly Spike’s Johnny Rotten stories were X-rated. Xander’s face heated up, and he focused on geeky William, who also seemed to be avoiding the sex show going on in memory land.

Right. Focus on breathing and seeing visions at the same time. Xander was almost glad he was gagged because without the ball shoved in his mouth, he so would have been saying something embarrassing right now. He totally would have. Spike and Johnny Rotten. And oddly, Xander wasn’t even shocked. He was, however, grateful that the visions didn’t come with surround sound because when he glanced out the side of his eye, Johnny Rotten was truly enjoying himself and Spike hummed along with the song on the radio as he drove.


	11. A demon's got to eat

Spike pulled off onto a half-circle worn into the grass at the side of the narrow road. Xander raised an eyebrow, but given Spike’s mood, he wasn’t prepared to spit out the gag and ask any questions. The longer he’d sat silent, the more he realized that he had been trying to use jokes to avoid having to deal with the nearly overwhelming fear that would catch at him when he wasn’t careful.

Spike was right. He had a mean side. He had an absolutely cruel side. When Oz had eaten O’Toole, Xander had felt a deepset satisfaction. And yeah, O’Toole had been a zombie bad guy, but Xander hadn’t even told Oz about the kill, and Oz was his friend. And when the hyena had taken over, Xander’s sudden urge to rape Buffy had sort of been totally him. And normally he repressed that so hard that even his subconscious didn’t think about it, but it was true.

Considering that he hadn’t been alive all that long, he had a pretty long list of people he’d like to see dead.

Spike got out, and the interior light of the car came on. Xander’s patience snapped and he opened his mouth to spit out the ball gag. Or he tried. Xander’s lips stuck together, and panic started to rise as Xander squirmed and struggled to get his mouth open. All he managed to do was make his jaw sore because his lips were superglued together only without the superglue.

Xander screamed for help, the air coming out through his nose and very little sound at all following it.

“Keep your knickers on. I’ll be there in a second,” Spike said as he rattled around in the trunk.

Xander screamed again, and now Spike seemed to be ignoring him. He pulled against the rope holding his wrists, but despite Spike’s fears that Xander was going to turn into some supercharged alpha, the rope held. So instead Xander brought his foot up and started kicking at the dash.

Spike ripped the passenger side door open. “Bloody hell, I’m going to hog tie you and shove you in the trunk if you keep this up, Harris.”

Xander looked up at Spike and screamed, “I can’t open my mouth.” Between the closed lips and the ball gag, it came out more like Mm mm mmm mm mmmmmm. Spike frowned and leaned closer.

Tilting his head back, Xander tried to get Spike to really look. It took a few seconds, but Spike’s fingers traced the edges of Xander’s lips and then pressed against them. Xander blinked as the feeling of soft hands over his face made him shiver. Okay, it had definitely been too long for him in the sex department if Spike was hitting his trigger.

Spike finally stood up and considered him with pursed lips.

“Mmmmmm?” Xander demanded.

Spike vamped out, going all ridges and fangs.

Xander glared.

“Lots of demons can control their own flesh, pet. It’s not a surprising power.” With that, Spike seemed pretty unruffled. Xander though still had plenty of ruffling. He pulled at his hands and moaned loudly since moaning was about all he could do.

“Fledges get stuck in game face all the time, not that I did, mind you,” Spike said with a smirk. “I never did have a problem getting my human face back on, but Drusilla picked up a few pets along the way that would get themselves in a tizzy over trying to change back.”

“Mmmmm?” Xander had to hope that Spike could correctly translate that into a request for information on how to fix the problem. Problem-having Xander knew well. Problem-fixing was a little harder.

Spike tilted his head and considered him. “I could chain you up and whip you until you change back, or in your case, open your mouth.”

All the blood left Xander’s face.

“Or I could just wait it out. You’ll change back eventually.” Reaching down, Spike pulled the end of the rope free from the car.

“Mmmmm.”

“Nope, those are about the only choices. Right then, if you want to go with the first choice, strip off those jeans and lean over the car. I’ll give you a whipping that will bring you to heel and get that mouth open.”

Xander glared at Spike.

“That’s what I thought.” Spike pulled Xander out of the car by the rope before winding it around his hand several times. This was hell. This was hell and he was in it. Xander knew all the shitty things he’d done in his life, but he didn’t think he deserved this.

With his other hand, Spike picked up a metal bucket and started across the low ditch that separated the road from the barbed wire fence. Xander wanted to know what the hell they were doing, but clearly Eve hadn’t given him the psychic powers upgrade so he was left trailing after Spike. The stupid bleached one was probably enjoying this.

Scratch that. He was definitely enjoying this. Xander grunted his annoyance.

Spike stopped at the barbed wire and put the bucket down.

"So then, here's the deal, pet. You're going to practice feeding without killing anyone."

Xander tried to pull back. He was not interested in feeding on anyone, but Spike used the rope leash to jerk him back. Xander complained, but with the gag in his mouth, he couldn't do more than grunt a few times.

Spike pulled him close and then looped the rope around Xander's waist before threading the end between Xander's wrists. "So, here's how it works. You're going to practice, and if I think you're not stopping in time, I'll give your leash a good hard tug."  
Spike demonstrated by jerking the leash. The rope slid between his wrists, tightened around his waist, and pulled his hands into his stomach. The second Xander got his mouth open, he was cursing Spike out with every bad word he knew, and he’d learned a lot of bad words in Africa.

“So, let’s see if we can’t get you some practice,” Spike said as he picked up the metal bucket and started shaking it. It made a soft rattling noise and one of the cows made a low call into the night.

Xander’s eyes got big. Oh no. He was not sucking lifeforce from cows. When Xander tried to back away, Spike sidestepped into his space so Xander ended up back to chest with him.

“I’ve seen you shove three hamburgers in that gob of yours in under ten minutes, so I know you don’t have any objections to having cows die in service to your appetite. But remember, this time, the goal is to feed without killing ‘em.”

Xander wanted to point out that he never looked his hamburgers in the eyes when they still had eyes, but Spike was shaking that pail and using his body to herd Xander closer to the fence. Yeah, Spike kept talking alph-this and alph-that. But as far as Xander could see, he was still getting-shoved-around boy. Not much had changed.

“Right then, you focus on that hunger you have in your belly for something more than food,” Spike suggested as the dark shadows of cows started to press close.”

“Mmmmm.”

“Articulate as ever, luv.”

Xander growled.

“Right then, we’re going to be here until you get to practicing, so get started.”

Xander sighed. He’d try getting stubborn, only Spike had always been able to out-stubborn him. He looked at the cows with a faint sense of disgust. Great. He was a cow killing monster. This was disgusting and embarrassing.

However, Xander had to admit there was a spark of something hot and hungry in his belly. It was like when he had a really bad Twinkie craving. Now that Xander had noticed the hunger, it grew until Xander whined in pain. His belly felt like it was turning inside out.

“The animals are right there,” Spike said as he stood at Xander’s back. Xander reached up with his tied hands and grabbed the wire between the little sharp barbs. Spike leaned forward and put the bucket of grain right beside the fence, and the cows started shoving at each other with their huge shoulders. A cow stuck her large brown head through the strands of barb wire and stuck her head in the bucket with a snort.

Xander reached out and let his fingers brush across her ear. She immediately stilled, and Xander could feel the warmth travel up his arm. It was like standing in chocolate. Warm chocolate sliding over him. Only his skin could taste every bit of rich, creamy chocolate as it ran over his body. Xander let his eyes close, but without warning, something punched him in the gut and the chocolate was ripped away.

Xander tried to curse through the gag, and it took him a second to realize he’d actually punched himself in the stomach because Spike had pulled the leash so hard. Bastard.

“The goal is to learn how to stop, ya gormless plonker.”

Spike was really pissed if he was pulling out those insults. Usually he stuck with prat and pillcock and a bunch of other words that Giles said way quieter. However, Xander couldn’t exactly apologize or even explain why the whole feeding thing was so damn good. Too good. This was a monumentally bad idea because Xander was way safer never feeding on anything except pizza and Twinkies.

However, Spike didn’t give him a choice. He uprighted the bucket that the cow had tipped over when Xander had finally broken contact. Soon enough, another cow stuck her head through, and Spike forced him to the fence. They repeated the whole feeding and jerking back over and over and over until Xander stomach was a massive bruise. However, as the gray of false dawn first started appearing, Xander had learned to force himself to pull back, even when he had that chocolate power dripping over his fingers.

“Right then, that’s good enough for tonight. We’re staying in a house right up the road, so let’s pack up,” Spike announced. He took the bucket and flung the last bits of grain out into the pasture with the shell-shocked cows.

“You’ve right ruined them for milking for the next few days. Some farmer John is going to be put out,” Spike observed. “And you’re overflowing with power that’s got nowhere to go. As much as you annoy me, I’d rather not have you explode into tiny little pieces of meat and bone.”

Xander jerked and tried to turn around to face Spike. He was joking. He had to be joking. And yeah, Xander felt a little shaky and hyped up on sugar—like a dozen Halloween nights all at once hyped up—but exploding was out of the question. Right? Xander was desperate to ask, but he couldn’t. Worse, Spike wrapped an arm around Xander’s waist and wouldn’t let him turn.

“This is to keep something bad from happening, understand?” Spike asked. Xander rolled his eyes. Exactly what did Spike expect him to say when he couldn’t say anything?

Xander was so distracted with annoyance that he didn’t catch Spike’s meaning until teeth slid into his neck.

Shock.

Fury.

And then the warm slide of blood and the feel of a strong body holding him. Xander squirmed as the feeling of Spike’s teeth sunk into his flesh turned into something erotic. Feeding was chocolate running down his body, but this… this was strawberries and lemonade and tart candies that exploded. Xander started sucking air in through his nose as his cock got harder and harder.

Still, Spike fed with obscene sounds that sent shivers through Xander’s body. By the time Spike stopped, Xander was lightheaded. He needed Spike’s arm around him to keep his sense of balance. However, his cock was humiliatingly hard, and he brought his hands down to hide it.

“Natural reaction, that. When demons feed off each other, it just happens.” Spike cleared his throat, and Xander was almost sure that he was adjusting his own jeans. This was beyond mortifying.

“So let’s head to the house where we’re staying.” Spike grabbed the bucket and led Xander back up toward the car.

Xander’s feet felt like concrete, and when Spike got him into the passenger side, he collapsed into the seat, too tired to even care that Spike retied the end of the rope to the underside of his seat. Nope. Xander was too busy hiding his giant boner.

The universe just loved to humiliate him.

And if he ever found Eve again, he was going to… Xander sighed and admitted to himself he was going to run like hell, and this time he was going to keep running no matter what. This whole being an alpha thing was not all that much fun.


	12. Xander finds a few new powers

Xander yawned and tried to turn over. Yeah, not so much with the turning since Spike had brought his handy under-the mattress bondage kit. Xander was strapped down at the wrists, ankles and chest, just like in the last hotel.

“Hey. Wait. I’m talking boy,” Xander said as he stared up at the ceiling. Beside him, Spike stirred. “Oh boy do I have a few things to say to you great bleached one of the mighty annoyingness.”

Spike rolled over and opened one blue eye. “The sun’s not even down yet.”

“And you dragged me up here tied up. You told the lady at the desk I was your getting-tied-up-boyfriend.” Xander’s voice rose to girlish heights, but he was too pissed to care.

Both of Spike’s eyes blinked open now and he groaned. “It’s too bloody early for this rot.”

“Too fucking bad.” Xander snapped his mouth closed. Yes, he was an adult and he had a right to use the f-word. He just generally didn’t.

Spike’s expression turned almost amused, and Xander really hated that. He hated amusing Spike and earning that shit-eating grin. “Right then, when you’re running from someone, you have to keep them from figuring out how you decide where to lay up. If they can predict you, you’ve already lost the battle.”

“Oh great wise one of the having been hunted often,” Xander said with a snort. “You do more of the hunting than the getting hunted.”

“Bloody hell, luv. The way Angelus and Darla played games with hunters, I spent my first three decades slipping from one town to another with some hunter on my tail. It was soddin’ idiotic the way those two would kick the nearest hornets’ nest and then go dancing away. Masochistic at heart, both of ‘em.” Spike snorted and sat up. Meanwhile, Xander’s brain was having to do a little rewiring. Masochistic? Angel?

“And the kinky gay thing?”

Spike grinned. “Face it pet, this place doesn’t get many of that crowd.”

Considering that this was a dude ranch with rooms decorated out of some 1970s Urban Cowboy flea sale, Xander figured that no self-respecting gay man would set foot in the room. While Xander had spent a lot of time travelling, and some of that time travelling in areas with actual hotel rooms, he’d never seen so many ugly hotels in his entire life. It was like this universe had a hotel curse or a lack of professional decorators. Maybe they didn’t have Queer Eye for the Straight Guy in this world. Whatever the cause, these hotels were making Xander’s eyes bleed.

“And by telling her we were gay and kinky, and marching me past her desk with my hands tied, you pretty much guaranteed that she’s going to tell everyone about us.”

“Doubt that, luv. She’s not going to want people to think she’s got gay cooties on the fresh sheets. And if she does, she’s going to talk about the two flaming queers who came sashaying through. Now, what sort of description do you think Rupert’s going to give?”

Xander frowned. “He thinks I’m dangerous enough to kill, so I’m guessing he’s not going to use the word sashay.”

“Exactly. Use people’s stereotypes against ‘em. Make them see what you want them to instead of what’s right in front of them. So when we leave, make sure you give her a little finger wave.” Spike raised his hand and wiggled four fingers. “Right then, let’s have a look at your mouth. Feel sore?”

“I’m fine.” Xander tried to pull his head away from Spike, but being tied down did limit his movement. Spike easily caught him and ran his thumb along Xander’s lip, inside and out.

“Told you that it’d go back to normal. Now, let’s see what else you can do with that power of yours.”

“Oh no,” Xander cut him off. “We’re going to talk about you being eating boy last night. You bit me!”

Spike pulled his hand back and considered Xander, his expression hard. Oh shit. Xander held his breath and waited until the visions started forming out of the shadows. Oh hell no. That was Angelus standing in the middle of the bed, whip in hand as he stared down at Xander.

“Spike, that is creeping me out. Tell me why you’re having Angelusy thoughts.”

“You’re a demon, Harris.”

“Yeah, I’m starting to get that,” Xander snapped.

Spike reached out and grabbed his chin, hard. Xander felt the fingers digging into his flesh. “Every demon I’ve ever known is about hierarchies. It’s about power. A sire makes his fledge beg for every mercy so that the adult vampire remembers its place, even when it’s strong enough to fight on its own. You’re strong, pet. I saw that last night.”

“And…” Xander demanded because he could hear the other shoe about to drop.

“And I plan to make sure you know that you’re mine.”

“Problem Spike. I’m not. I’m not yours.”

“Buffy’s not here.” Spike let go of Xander’s chin, not that it helped much in terms of making Xander any more comfortable. He pulled at the wrist cuffs. “She’d take you in hand and set rules about not eating the locals. But she’s not here, and I’m the only one let to take you in hand, so yes, you are mine. And until Buffy shows up to tell me otherwise, you’re going to keep being mine. And even after we do get home, she’s not going to know how to handle a new-made demon. Hell, she might even call in Angel.”

“Oh hell no,” Xander blurted. No way was he going to deal with Deadboy and getting demonified all at once.

“He’d kill you if he saw how much power you’ve got running in you,” Spike said. He sucked air through his teeth while Xander had a slow and quiet freak out. “The prat seems to think that no one can resist power. Of course, you aren’t exactly known for your restraint, so he might have a point.” Spike gave Xander a really nasty glare.

Xander opened his mouth to defend himself, but there was entirely too much ammunition Spike could use to drive his point home. He’d proposed to Anya when he didn’t want to get married. He’d nearly run off and joined the army because Spike made him feel useless. He’d been part of the whole resurrect Buffy plan, and even after Spike had warned them that spells always had side effects, he’d pretty much ignored reality. And of course there was the wedding that wasn’t. Yeah, he’d done some pretty stupid shit. And that wasn’t even counting the number of times he’d jumped into something in Africa before finding out what was going on. He’d nearly killed a witch doctor before figuring out he was threatening the good guy, and the guy giving him the intel was the bad guy. Yeah, restraint and patience were not his first or second personality traits.

“It’s not like you’re any better,” Xander said mulishly.

“Sometimes I rush the plans at the end,” Spike agreed, “but until I ran into you lot, I did pretty well. It’s just that you never did follow the rules. I would have had Buffy that first night, only her mum and friends jumped in, and that had not been on any of the tapes I’d studied when I watched her fight. And trust me, none of the other slayers ever had sidekicks.”

“So, we surprised you out of winning?”

“Knowing the enemy is key, and after a century, I thought humans didn’t have any more surprises for me.” Spike shrugged. “Arrogance gets ya killed, pet. Either that or it gets you chipped and then set back on the right path, but generally it just gets you killed. Now, getting back to the issue of the bite… I’m going to do that a whole lot more.”

“Red, Spike. Red as in full stop. No and more no. Bad touching.”

Spike pursed his lips and considered Xander for a time. Xander wanted to pull up his visions, but frankly he was a little scared to.

“If you were human, I’d respect that. But when you’re brassed off at someone and determined to eat them, do you really think you get a choice? If I stay stop, you stop. This isn’t a game, and you don’t get to say ‘no,’” Spike said firmly. “The bite is a good way for my demon to make sure your demon knows his place, and it’s less painful than other ways of showing dominance.”

Xander swallowed as he thought about Angelus holding the whip. “And if I promised to not get pissed off enough to eat anyone?” he asked hopefully.

Spike snorted. “Luv, you’ve been that brassed off at least twenty times that I’ve seen. Sooner or later, you’re going to want to eat someone.”

Xander opened his mouth, but again, he couldn’t exactly deny the charge. The thought of Willow going all dark rose up in his memory. His Willow had a lot less darkness and hate in her heart than he did, and she’d still gone and ripped off all Warren’s skin. And Xander could almost call that justified, only then she’d tried to kill the rest of them. While he’d never admit it out loud, Angel had a point about power.

“Last night, you figure out how good it feels, didn’t you?” Spike asked quietly.

Xander swallowed. He really did not want to admit any of that out loud.

“First time I fed, I never wanted to stop,” Spike said in that same soft voice. “Felt good, it did. Felt bloody wonderful. It was like the richest, warmest pudding, and I wanted to sink into that pleasure.” He cleared his throat. “It takes some time before you can get control of that hunger. Now, back to work. If you can control your own flesh, it’s going to make it a good deal easier to hide.” Spike knelt up on the bed and caught Xander’s head between his palms. “Focus on your eyes. I want them to turn blue. Think about blue eyes, like Tara’s. Remember her eyes? Focus on that.”

Xander wasn’t focusing on that, though. He was focusing on Spike’s clear blue eyes staring at him. Felt something inside him shiver, and then Spike let his face go and sat up.

“You’re going to need a mirror for this,” Spike said as he jumped off.

“What? Why? What happened?” Xander blinked and squirmed in his cuffs, but he had to wait until Spike came back and held up a small mirror. Xander’s brown eyes were streaked and splattered with blue like some three year old had gotten into the water colors. “Oh yeah, that’s not going to attract attention, not at all.”

“Then fix ‘em.”

“How?” Xander demanded.

Spike gave him the dirty look to end all dirty looks, and it still took Xander three seconds to catch how stupid that sounded. If he’d messed up the color in his eyes, it seemed pretty reasonable that he could fix them.

“Hold the mirror up,” Xander said, ignoring his own stupidity. Luckily, Spike seemed willing to let it drop. He held the mirror up and Xander watched as the blue slowly spread until the brown vanished. However, the blue kept spreading until the white vanished, too. Xander blinked at the completely alien eyes that stared at him in the mirror. “Oh shit,” he whispered.

“We’ll work that, yeah?” Spike commented with a sigh. Yeah, Xander sucked as a student. And sadly, this was him doing his best.


	13. A different sort of Chicago town

“Well, the cows are safe,” Xander said as he looked out at the dirty streets and boarded up windows. This Chicago was way worse than his. Xander was starting to have a little sympathy for Giles and his desperate need to save his world. Their apocalypse seemed to have way more apocalypty damage to splash around.

Spike huffed. “That’s not a good thing, pet. We’re going to have to find a way for you to feed.”

“Or not,” Xander suggested.

Spike turned a yellow-eyed glare his way, and Xander held up a hand in surrender. They’d finally ditched ropes, but Xander now had heavy padded cuffs literally locked around his wrists and ankles. One click of one of the locks Spike carried, and he could have Xander hogtied in seconds. He’d demonstrated. More than he needed to, actually.

“I’m just saying that if I am developing powers, I would like to develop the power to live off human food for nice long periods of time. I’m not saying no to demon feeding forever.”

Spike frowned as he turned his attention back to the road. “Might not be a bad idea,” he said, and that was enough to shock the crap out of Xander. Spike listening to him. Pigs were flying somewhere in this world.

“In cities, there are a lot more choices for lairs. Public works like water treatment plants or electric substations can have some quiet corners, and people generally don’t think of them when they’re searching for hidey holes.”

“Because you can get dead by electrocution in a substation.”

“Humans can,” Spike said. “You and I would just get a real nasty jolt that would teach us to be more careful next time.”

Xander cringed. “First, that’s an assumption because we don’t know what would happen to me, and second, no, we aren’t testing it.”

Spike smirked, his cheekbones sharper than ever. “Now luv, how are we supposed to know the limits if we don’t push a little?”

“Now oh mighty annoying one, how are we supposed to know what kills me until after I’m the dead sort of unbreathing?”

“You might have a point there.” Spike glanced over. “I’m still almost sure that you’d be fine.”

“It’s the almost part that worries me, Spike. Let’s stick with things we’re absolutely sure won’t kill me.”

“Then we should cut you off the Twinkies.”

“But Spike, they have them in this universe. They have Twinkies. No bankruptcy, no interruption of the yellow cake goodness. No hoarding of gooey filling and overcharging on Ebay. Twinkies, Spike. Twinkies. I’m even willing to forgive this universe for not having any Doublemeat Palaces because they have Twinkies.”

“Daft,” Spike muttered as he turned the car onto a street that looked even worse than the last.

“A man has to have his priorities,” Xander said firmly. Of course, he was also firmly not thinking about where all the Twinkies went because Xander had definitely stopped needing to use a bathroom for anything other than a hot bath. It was creepy. Spike could talk efficiency and demonic consumption of energy all he wanted. Xander was still putting the lack of poo into the creepy column.

“Right then, start checking out the empty houses.”

“Um… for what?” Xander asked.

Spike rolled his eyes. “We’re looking for an empty house, some place that we can slip in undisturbed. If we were good little evil vampires, we wouldn’t care about any squatters because we could feed on ‘em, turn ‘em or if they really smelled high, just break their necks. Since we’re not evil, we need to find a place that others aren’t using. Usually that means a house or business boarded up so good humans can’t get in easy. Old businesses are the best bet for us.”

“And you want me to check for empty buildings?” Xander asked.

Okay, sure, he could check to see if there were any thought-ghosts running around, but the problem was that Xander could now see the thoughts and emotions that had attached to objects. A little girl’s favorite bunny trapped a memory of a child with red hair and a crooked smile. A rocking chair kept alive a ghost of a woman who rocked and rocked and rocked, her dead baby’s dress in hand. Spike said it was normal—that talismans only worked because thoughts and emotions did attach to things, but Xander was starting to worry that he was going to end up on that show they’d discovered the other day—Hoarders. If every object had a memory, how could he throw anything away? And then how was he supposed to explain why a broken rocking chair on an abandoned farmhouse’s front porch made him break down in tears? Yeah, he was screwed.

“The image from a talisman and the image from a human being can’t be the same. Search for living images.”

“Easy for you to say,” Xander complained, but he did it quietly. Spike’s willingness to use the ball gag was a little disturbing. He slowed his breathing, settling into a quiet inside his own mind that allowed him to watch the world through ghost glasses. Every person on the street—every kid leaning against a building, every woman carrying bags, every man hunched down on the sidewalk—had a small army of ghosts around them. Some appeared and disappeared, changing with the person’s thoughts. Others were more persistent.

Spike stopped at a red light, and Xander studied a young woman with dreadlocks pulled back into a wild ponytail. She had a strength to her, but a weariness as she pulled a boy along after her, and Xander watched a tall woman with a spear and a heavy iron collar follow behind, an invisible honor guard, ready to strike at any danger. The woman wore a… a necklace. It had a small wood disk that an ancestor had brought from Africa. The woman had earned it for success in her first hunt, and she would not part with it, even when the bastard white devils stole everything else. She swallowed it.

That woman walked behind her descendant now, and as they passed the car, the ghost’s eyes turned to consider Xander coldly. Okay, that was new. Xander got the feeling that this particular ghost wasn’t as helpless as most. However, he noticed that she was firmer. Okay, maybe firmer wasn’t the world. She didn’t fade in and out with the drifting thoughts of others. Her form was her form and not a single atom strayed. Normally these ghosts kind of trailed off around the edges and then randomly dissolved into smoke.

When the light turned green, Spike hit the gas. “Mate, if you go staring at women like that, you’re going to invite trouble.”

“Hey, you’re the one who told me to look for ghosts.”

“Specter.”

“Same thing.”

“No, it isn’t,” Spike said firmly. “So, did that one back there have a specter?”

“Oh yeah,” Xander agreed. “A scary spear-wielding specter that looked at me like she would be very happy to skewer me if I even looked at her descendent wrong.”

“Huh.” Spike sucked his cheeks and seemed to think about that for a time.

“Huh what?” Xander finally asked. He still wasn’t big with patience, and some days Spike seemed determined to annoy him to death.

“Some talismans do carry curses or blessings. It could be that you’re picking up on objects that carry an intent like that,” Spike said. “Like that trucker… you said that he had a necklace of women’s teeth, and it had tried clawing him.”

“Um, yeah?” Xander shivered. Considering he’d gone up against a hellgod and the mother of all monsters, the fact that a human was the creepiest thing he’d ever met really said something about his species. His ex-species.

“Pet, you couldn’t see talisman specters until we’d practiced a good bit. It could be that the women died so horribly that their deaths turned that necklace into a cursed object.”

“And the curse then fell on the truck driver by reaching out to me so I would…” Xander let his words trail off. So he would kill the guy, and Xander had. Xander had killed him, not that he was feeling guilty about it. He’d been a raping, murdering asshole. But Xander did feel bad that he’d killed someone without meaning to, which was also slightly assholish.

“These powers of yours might turn out useful after all,” Spike teased.

“Yeah, yeah. Considering that you keep telling me how powerful I am and how you have to sit on me to make sure I know my place in the pecking order, trying to downplay my demony mojo now is kinda late, Spike.” Xander pulled at the heavy cuffs. They were brown leather with heavy steel bands that connected to even heavier clasp locks by a pair of thick links. One extra heavy lock and three D-rings were evenly spaced around the cuff, and Xander pulled on one of the rings. He knew from experience he couldn’t get the cuffs off, but he couldn’t stop pulling at them anyway.

“What has your knickers in a twist then?” Spike asked, but before Xander could answer, he added, “and if ya lie to me, you’ll be gagged and hogtied the rest of the day.”

Xander immediately swallowed the ‘nothing’ he’d almost said.

Spike came to another red light and stopped, and that let him turn his attention to Xander, which was not of the good.

“Lean forward, hands behind your back,” Spike ordered.

“But—”

Spike’s eyes yellowed, and Xander put his hands behind him. Spike reached over with a padlock and quickly clicked it shut. Sighing, Xander leaned back into the seat.

“You’re a bully, you know.”

“I know when you start trying to figure stuff out in your own head, you always come to the wrong conclusion. You’re not good at being a demon, Harris.”

“Yeah, hey, I already figured that out. I tried to get Eve to focus on you instead because of that.” Xander clamped his mouth shut. Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid.

“Ya did, did you?” Spike gave him a long look. “You probably should have avoided saying that.”

“Probably,” Xander agreed.

Spike pulled the red ball out of his coat pocket.

“But hey, you need me to look for specters so we know where we can lair up,” Xander offered brightly.

“Open,” Spike ordered.

After sighing, Xander opened his mouth and let Spike push the ball in.

“I’ve been finding lairs since before your grandfather was born, so you sit there like a good baby demon and think about what you’re going to say the next time I ask you why you’re upset. Keep in mind that if you’re not very honest and very thorough, you are not going to like what comes next.”

Xander sighed again. He didn’t like what he had now. He pulled against the wrist cuffs, but nothing gave. Yeah, for all his demony power, he couldn’t break one bondage cuff designed for a human. And okay, it was clearly designed for a massive human, but still, it didn’t inspire confidence.

Worse, Xander didn’t know what he was supposed to tell Spike when he finally decided to let Xander talk. ‘Hey, Spike, let’s not make that scheduled call home to Willow because I don’t want her to know I’m a demon now. In fact, let’s never have anything to do with back home at all. In fact, running sounds good.’ Yeah, that’d go over like a bean fart in church.


	14. Phoning home

“So, are you ready to talk?” Spike asked after he’d gotten them settled into an empty Radio Shack storefront. The windows were already boarded over, and the shelves were dusty, many of them knocked off their supports so they leaned at impossible angles.

Spike had already taken the lock off the cuffs, so Xander reached up and took the ball out. “I’d rather talk than have this in my mouth, which is not the same as actually wanting to talk,” Xander pointed out.

“I’m not asking, pet. I’m ordering you to talk.” Spike made an odd face. “Bloody hell. I’m ordering Xander Harris to talk. I spend soddin’ years dreaming up ways to shut you up. Life’s always enjoyed toying with me, but this is just unfair.” Spike went back to setting up the spell that would let him talk to Willow.

“We didn’t do this last week, so the weekly calls are not as much weekly as when we can get around to them, right?” Xander asked hopefully.

Spike eyed him like he was a bug that had crawled out of a big pile of crap. “Spit it out, Harris.”

Xander opened his mouth to make a joke, but the look on Spike’s face made the funny sort of wither up and die. “I don’t want Willow and Buffy knowing that I’m… you know.”

“A demon,” Spike finished for him.

“Exactly. Me and demoniness are not buds, and you know Buffy’s stance on all things demon.”

“You think she’ll sleep with you?” Spike asked.

Xander blinked as he tried to figure out if that was a joke. Was Spike really joking about Buffy’s inappropriate sexual partners, and if so that was pretty rich considering he was one of them. “Um, no,” Xander said slowly. “Sex with Buffy is like sex with Willow—very sisterly and overly creepy.”

Spike nodded. “Right then, what has your knickers in a twist. It isn’t like you went and asked to get turned into a demon.”

“Yeah, but I…” Xander stopped. From Spike’s yellow eyed glare, he was guessing that he running out of time. “I killed someone,” Xander blurted out. “And you remember how Buffy is about the killing of people.”

Spike rocked back on his heels. “You killed a serial killer who had a gun in hand because he’d been planning on killing you. Now, either you tell me what really has you tied in knots, or I’m going to hang you from the rafters and leave you to suffer until you get your head on straight.”

Xander cringed. When he’d been human, he could have counted on that to be some sort of empty threat. Now, not so much. “I’m not the same. It’s not the same now.” Xander could feel the words stick in his throat. Spike set aside the candles and watched intently, so intently that Xander felt like his thoughts were all on display. He blinked into his visions, and William was there with his notebook in hand. He peered over his glasses. The lack of Angelus was a relief.

“I like feeding,” Xander whispered.

“You mean you liked feeding on that bloke with the truck?” Spike asked, and oddly he didn’t have any emotion in his voice at all.

Xander shook his head. “I didn’t know then. I mean, I didn’t have time to feel anything.” He took a deep breath, and Spike still waited. “I like feeding off the cows.”

“And?” Spike leaned forward, and William took several steps forward and raised a pencil as though preparing for some timed test.

“And now I wonder what it would feel like to feed off a human,” Xander snapped. He froze, his guts turning to absolute ice. Sharp, jagged ice that ripped at him. He was damned. Eve had damned him to the deepest most damned corner of hell.

Spike sucked air through his teeth, and William vanished altogether. In his place was a vampire William with dark blond hair and blood splattered over his mouth. The scar in his eyebrow was actually an open bleeding wound, but vampire William still looked joyous in a way Xander had never seen Spike.

“You seeing him?” Spike asked.

Xander nodded.

“I was young then, and when you’re a young demon, the world is like an overripe plum begging you to sink your teeth into it.”

“But… I’m one of the good guys. I shouldn’t want…” Xander let his voice trail off.

“We are what we are, luv. Our good intentions don’t change our nature.”

“But Eve said I could choose my nature,” Xander said. “So if I’m wondering…” Xander was not have an easy time finishing sentences.

Spike stood and carefully picked his way over the runes he’d drawn. “Luv, you’re a demon. You have the power of an old one running through you, so you can’t help but feel some of those same urges. It doesn’t mean that either one of us is going to go out and massacre an orphanage full of kiddies.”

Xander flinched, and sure enough, the bodies of dead children were scattered across the floor.

“How do you live with it?” Xander asked in a whisper.

“Not much choice, pet. I can’t change the past. But you never did let your demon loose like that, and feeling guilty about your feelings is downright Catholic of you. Unless you want me to start calling you Peaches, you need to remember that you don’t have anything to feel guilty about. Bloody hell, you’ve never even killed a cow.”

“I’ve tried,” Xander whispered. And he really would have killed many, many cows if not for Spike.

“I’m not about to let you go off killing the local happy meals,” Spike said firmly. He reached out and caught Xander’s shoulder, pressing his fingers into the flesh. “You’re mine, luv. You don’t have permission to kill, so it doesn’t matter how much wondering you do.”

“But it would taste good, wouldn’t it?” Xander asked in a horrified whisper. He had no idea why he’d even gone there.

Spike moved closer. “Yeah, luv, it would. And then you’d tear yourself to pieces after.”

Xander nodded and tried hard to just keep his mouth shut. He actually wanted to be gagged, and wasn’t that weird to admit to himself.

“Right then, let’s get ahold of Red and let her know what sort of mess we’ve fallen into.”

Xander nodded without saying anything. The guilt and fear still gnawed at him like a really pissed off pit bull that refused to let go. But maybe the teeth felt a little less sharp. Maybe. Maybe that was all wishful thinking. He played with the cuff locked around his left wrist as Spike finished laying out the most complicated spell Xander had ever seen.

“Ready?” Spike asked as he finally stepped back. A dozen candles sat in the middle of a sprawling series of runes that Xander couldn’t even hope to understand. He could, however, see the runes stretching and writhing like dogs trying to escape a leash.

“No,” Xander said.

Spike moved to his side and wrapped his fingers around Xander’s arm and held tightly. Spike read the spell off a little spiral notebook, and the air above the runes shimmered as the lines stretched up into the air. Xander blinked to push away the visions and he could see the air turn waterish right before Willow’s appeared, her body distorted like she was on the other side of an aquarium.

“Spike! Xander! Thank the goddess. We’ve been worried about you! Buffy! They called,” she yelled, but there wasn’t any answer. “Go get Buffy,” she ordered someone outside the spell.

“We have a little problem, Red.”

Immediately, Willow’s smile faded. “Oh uh. Are we talking little as in elephant or little as in nuclear bomb?”

Spike glanced over, but given how much trouble Xander was having with complete sentences, there was no way he wanted to talk about any of this. Spike sighed and focused on Willow again. “Have you heard of Tiamat?”

Her eyes got big. “Oh goddess.”

“Oh goddess? That sounds ominous.” Buffy stepped into the picture. “Hey, you. What’s up with this getting kidnapped out of the council house?”

“You know my luck with women,” Xander said with a weak smile.

“Oh uh,” Buffy said, and she looked over at Willow, and yep, Willow had the scrunchy face on.

“I take it you've heard of her,” Spike said to Willow.

“Her? Who her?” Buffy looked around, and even through the distortion, Xander could see she had her slayer face on.

“I’m pretty sure the her in question is Tiamat who was one of the old gods who escaped when the others like Ilyria were trapped in the well,” Willow said, and she looked at them like she was begging them to disagree.

“Yep. It seems like the boy caught her eye,” Spike offered.

“A god?” Buffy looked faintly horrified. “You caught the attention of a god? Why can’t you ever attract good old fashioned human serial killers and psychopaths?”

Xander cringed.

“Xander?” Buffy asked in that tone of voice that Joyce used to have—the one that said she knew you were holding out on her, and she wanted details.

“Boy’s dealing with enough right now,” Spike quickly said. He stepped forward, and Xander actually found himself pretty happy to slink into his shadow.

“Like Tiamat?” Buffy demanded, and that was definitely her slayer face.

Spike nodded. “She said she couldn't have any more children because of getting poisoned by Phoenix ash.”

“Oh, that's not good,” Willow said, “Or it is good because Tiamat is the mother of monsters. They were her army in a war against Marduk. So a pregnant Tiamat wouldn’t be a good thing.” Willow suddenly stopped. “Wait. They have Phoenix in that universe?” Her eyes got big.

“I haven't run across one myself, no, but that's what she told Xander.”

Buffy pushed forward. “Told as in Xander was having a conversation with the mother of monsters?”

“Not like I had a choice, Buff.”

“So, I take it Phoenix ash could poison her?” Spike asked.

There was a long pause that pretty much meant that Willow didn't know. "Um, maybe?" she finally settled on. “What does that have to do with Xander?”

“Seems like she decided to adopt him.”

Xander flinched.

“Adopt?” Willow’s voice went up at least an octave and Buffy retreated several steps. Oh yeah, this was going just great.

“Xander's a demon now,” Spike said and he even managed to have this totally casual tone. The weather is great, the job market for carpenters is actually quite good and Xander’s a demon. Right now Xander just wanted to creep into the smallest hole he could find and pull dirt in over him.

Instead of a little silence, there was a huge old massive chunk of it. Xander swallowed, and Spike reached back and grabbed his neck, fingers pressing into the sides of it. It shouldn't feel good, but it did. It felt like Spike was holding him together.

"Is Xander...” Willow stopped, her hands coming up to her mouth, and Xander could practically read her mind. That was more a side effect of knowing someone twenty years rather than a superpower, though.

"I'm standing right here, Will. I'm demonified, not changed.” Xander frowned. “ Well, I'm changed, but not really different.”

Clearly his powers of Willow soothing were on the fritz. “Oh goddess. Oh my lord. Demonified? Like a vampire?”

Xander opened his mouth to agree. Yep, he was like a vampire. A boring old vampire. Yep, totally vampire-like. Unfortunately, Spike got there first.

"More like an alph."

Willow made a choking sound and Buffy looked from Willow to Xander and back again, her concern rising with every second.

“Okay, I’ll bite, what’s an alph?” Buffy asked.

Willow whispered in a horrified voice, “A father of monsters.”

Yep, this was going great.


	15. The boys start figuring a few things out

“You alright, pet?” Spike asked as they walked down the street.

“Peachy.” Xander didn’t even try and pretend any honesty. Willow and Buffy were terrified he was going to start spawning and yet angry that Spike was pushing him around. They wanted Xander home, but they didn’t want him home when he was all demony. And someone had definitely forgotten to tell him about the whole magic thing.

“They mean well.”

“She fucking lied,” Xander snarled. Immediately, Spike grabbed him by the neck and hauled him into an alley where Xander quickly found himself slammed face first into the brick. Spike locking his hands behind his back wasn’t even a shock at this point.

“You get control right now,” Spike snarled, and from the sound, he had his fangs out. Xander stood trembling, Spike’s whole body pressing him into the rough brick.

“She should have told me.”

“Yes, she should have,” Spike said. He grabbed Xander, yanked him off the wall and spun him around and then slammed him back into the wall so that Xander’s cuffed hands and shoulders were tightly up against the brick. “She should have told you about the magic, but what would you have done? You got that magic dumped into you saving the bloody world, Harris, and if you remember, Red wasn’t exactly herself at the time.”

Xander remembered the feel of dark Willow’s magic pouring into him, burning him from the inside. The pain had caught him like a vice and held him so tightly that he felt like every cell in his body might pop open at once, and wouldn’t that be a mess. But Xander had still loved her.

“Right then, calmer?” Spike asked.

Xander nodded. “She still should have told me that I still had that magic in me,” he said, but now he was more weary than angry. He was sure he’d be angry again later. His emotions seemed to be circling like that. Yep, his emotions were circling the drain, just like his life.

“Yes, she should have, but she didn’t. Besides, it’s not like you could have done anything about it.”

Xander made a face. He wasn’t ready to forgive her yet. He would be in a day or two, but right now he was still pretty much okay with being in his mad place.

“On another note, your demon form is starting to show,” Spike said.

“My… what?” panic crawled up Xander’s spine.

“No worries, luv. You’re still just as handsome. You just had a bit of a red-eyed moment there.”

“Great.” Xander sagged back against the building. “So I can’t even get mad without outing myself to all the little hunters. This is just wonderful.” Xander closed his eyes and tried really hard to avoid thinking about what Giles would do to him now. He was officially a full-fledged demon, and his quantum-mirror father figure would behead him in about two seconds. It was hard on the self-confidence.

“It just gives us another power to practice,” Spike said firmly. “Now I’d rather not escort you around Chicago cuffed, but if I need to—”

“I’ll behave,” Xander said. Oddly he was less and less aggravated with Spike’s sudden penchant for bondage, but getting picked up by the Chicago police would be awkward.

“We need to see how you’ll react to demons.”

“I feel like a dog you’re training,” Xander complained.

“You’re not far off,” Spike said without much sympathy. Xander understood Spike’s whole need to dominate, and if he didn’t, the visions of dead orphanage children were usually somewhere in the background to remind him. He nodded, even if the whole dog metaphor aggravated him more than the actual bondage.

Spike manhandled him around again and opened the padlock. “Behave,” he ordered sharply, and then he tugged on Xander’s arm to get him moving.

“Were you this pushy with your minions?”

“Nope. If they got killed, I didn’t much care,” Spike said cheerfully. “I did get pushy with Dalton, but that’s because it’s hard to find a minion who’s still good at research after the turning. He had more human in him than he rightly should have.”

“Dalton… guy with glasses back in your world-ending Drusilla days?”

Spike rolled his eyes. “I never tried to end the world.”

“The Judge,” Xander said with a bit of sing-song.

“Bloody hell. Did Rupert tell you lot that the Judge would end the world?”

“Well, yeah,” Xander said, and suddenly he wasn’t so sure. “The book said—”

“One of those end of the world tomes he had with all the dust and Latin writings?”

Xander nodded.

“Here’s a lesson for you. Every person who ever put pen to paper claimed that the local big bad was the end of the world. What every person means is that *their* world would end. Maybe that was enough for those blokes. After all, it wasn’t like people travelled much, so if you took out land the size of Vermont, they’d consider their world gone.”

“So, no hell on earth with all humanity destroyed?”

Spike shrugged. “He probably would have taken central and south California… maybe a bit of Mexico. There comes a time when even a demon that big is sated and he doesn’t want to walk far enough to go find another meal.”

“That makes my brain hurt,” Xander said. Now he had to rearrange at least half his childhood memories.

“Nothing is truly world ending in any global sense unless it messes with dimensions. There are so many different worlds out there that if there’s a tear between dimensions and demons find it, the world could be looking at a full-scale invasion. Other than that, most evil is local.”

“In our world.”

Spike snorted. “Seems like the only world ending this world is looking at has to do with tearing down walls between heaven, hell, purgatory, and earth. The rules haven’t changed, only the players.” Spike got an arm around Xander’s back and moved closer as they walked. This wasn’t a great part of town, and more than one person stopped to glare at the man-on-man touching, but no one seemed willing to actually try and say anything. These people were smarter than the ones in Xander’s world.

“Would Angelus’ statue have ended the world?”

“Acathla? Yeah, that bugger would have. Only stupid gits mess with mojo like that, but then Angelus never was the brains of the family. I don’t know anyone stupid enough to mess with dimensions the way he did.”

“Except Eve,” Xander said quietly. Eve had definitely done the dimensional mojo. Well, and then there was the whole Buffy and heaven thing “And Willow’s spell.”

“The one sending me here?” Spike asked.

Xander blinked. “Actually, I meant the one that brought Buffy back, but yeah, she messed with dimensions sending you here, too.”

“Angel and company opened a dimensional rift after the cheerleader went missing,” Spike said quietly.

“Anya opened them all the time. She really was obsessed with bunnies and shrimp, which makes me kind of wonder what kind of bunnies and shrimp they have in other worlds. And of course Glory and the portal.”

“Warren and that bloody spell that turned Buffy into some chit in an insane asylum.”

“Buffy and her college roommate,” Xander countered.

“Old Heinrich, 1937.”

“Huh. We know a lot of stupid gits.”

Spike laughed. “That we do.” He leaned close, his breath tickling Xander’s ear. “How can you tell this is a demon bar?”

Xander gave him an odd look. “Oh, I don’t know. The big, honking, glowing demonic runes all over it, maybe,” Xander guessed.

Spike frowned. “Right then, we’ll add that to the list of powers we’re having you practice.”

Xander closed his eyes. “Don’t tell me, you can’t see them, can you?”

“Of course I can.” Spike snorted. It was the sort of sound he made when he was truly annoyed and upset. Xander looked over, and Spike had a disgusted look on his face. “If I look close and really concentrate, I can see some shimmers around the edges of ‘em,” he admitted. “Just move.” Spike gave him a shove toward the door, and Xander went.

Okay, time to meet the cousins. Xander frowned as he realized that in this world, all demons were cousins of a sort. Eve had given birth to all their alphs, so demons were sort of familish. Weird. Xander definitely preferred his demons. Well, not his demons as much as his world with its demon rules.

Xander just stopped thinking as he headed into the darkened bar.

The music wasn’t as loud as it had been in the Bronze, but it was the same sort of ‘appeal to the young’ rock. In fact, the people in the bar looked a lot like the sorts of people you would see at the Bronze—young, trying too hard to be attractive and not hard enough to watch what was going on around them. Other than the fact that Chicago had a lot more minorities and a lot less hellmouthy fun, Xander might think he’d just been dropped into Sunnydale.

“Spike, is it just me or…”

“I see, luv,” Spike kept pushing him toward the back. “It could be a cover.”

That made some sense. If you were going to be a demon, you probably wanted a good cover, and having lots and lots of humans around would be of the good.

A thin man with a wide smile stepped right into their path. “Totally awesome, the whole alternative lifestyle,” he grinned as he looked down at Xander’s cuffs. “If you ever want a third, I definitely wouldn’t mind getting fucked by either of you… or both. What the hell?” He laughed and threw his arms wide. Okay, they definitely sold better drugs in here than at the Bronze. At most, people traded a little marijuana back home. This guy was on something with a whole lot more punch.

“Sod off,” Spike suggested before guiding Xander around him.

“What he said,” Xander yelled over his shoulder, but Spike had already shoved them far enough away that their potential suitor had wandered off. “Spike, I’m having some WTFery moments here.”

“You mangle the language enough without adding those stupid acronyms to your list of sins.” He sounded almost absent-minded, but then he seemed pretty busy looking around.

“Okay,” Xander said slowly. “Let me rephrase that. What is going on?”

Spike glanced over, and before Xander could blink, he was shoved in the corner on his knees. “Eyes!” Spike snapped.

Xander slapped his hands over his eyes as he tried to calm down. Damn, damn, damn.

“Hey, this isn’t that sort of club.”

“Take a walk, mate.”

“But you can’t—”

“I don’t have my willy out, so until you see my short and curlies, you can sod off or I can put you on your knees.”

“Hey don’t hassle the gays.”

Xander groaned as the fight went on around him. At least it was distracting him. He could feel his emotions start to settle, the aggravation at finding an entire bar full of humans in a demon club slowly faded until Xander was left with a sort of weary amusement. He tried to find demons, and he couldn’t. He tried to avoid them, and they kidnapped him out of his bedroom. Yep, the universe loved him.

Xander carefully looked up, and Spike was watching him while two goth chicks ripped on the bouncer about alternative lifestyles and respecting others. This was… this was weird. And coming from Xander, that said a lot.

“You better then?” Spike asked.

Xander swallowed and nodded. “Yep. Feeling hugely with the stupid for getting annoyed so easy, but better,” he agreed.

Spike held out his hand, and Xander let Spike haul him up to his feet. “That’s not exactly unexpected, either, mate.”

“Great, I get the temper upgrade along with everything else. Can we maybe go somewhere else?” Xander said. The crush of bodies and the smell of so much humanity all jammed in a small space was making him a little crazy.

Spike gave him the hairy eye and then started pulling him toward the nearest exit.

Outside, the air was just as hot and muggy, but at least Xander kept getting lungs full of car exhaust instead of body odor. And oddly body odor didn’t smell nearly as bad as it used to. “Okay, is it just me or was that oddly unodd in there.”

“It wasn’t what I expected,” Spike agreed. He looked around the street and seemed to pick a new direction at random. “Do you see any more markings?” he asked as they started down the street.

“Way too many,” Xander said. Mostly they were small things tucked up under rooflines. “This city is full of runes, but then, New York was too. And don’t even get me started on Giles’ offices. Rune central. These people are way more into spells than folks back home.

Spike made a moue of disgust, so apparently he wasn’t a fan of runes. Or he wasn’t a fan of Xander having the power to see runes, that was an option. Xander scratched his arm. His skin felt too small for his body, and he was really hoping that was not literal. He could not handle any more weirdness, and popping out of his skin would be weird.

With a hand on his back, Spike kept him moving. “Could be the place got too hot—too many hunters had figured out they had easy pickings on this street. We’ll try another one. If ya see more of those glowing runes, give a shout.”

“So, this is another test?” Xander was really getting tired of tests. He felt like he was back in high school, and he wasn’t doing any better the second time around.

Spike gave a quick nod. Only Xander was suddenly not convinced he was telling the truth. The way Spike’s gaze scanned the street and the way he moved with this demonic grace that was way more about fighting than about blending in with the humans suggested something different.

“Um, Spike, why are you twitchy?”

Spike glanced over to where Xander was still scratching. “What’s wrong with you, mate?”

“What? Nothing. I just feel a little—” Xander froze. Oh shit. Shit and more shit.

“It’s a powerful bugger, whatever it is,” Spike said, agreeing with Xander even though Xander hadn’t actually said anything yet. They wanted demons and they’d found one.


	16. Demon... Chocolate... Chocolate demon?

Xander’s arm itched and he studied the streets around them. Spike reached over and casually caught Xander’s cuff and gave it a tug.

“Try to avoid ripping your skin off.”

“Way to give me a creepy mental image,” Xander complained, but he stopped scratching. If being around demons always felt like this, Xander was going to be in serious demon-avoidage. Wait. Spike never gave him the heebie jeebies, and he was a demon. “Are we trying to find this guy or run away from him?” Xander whispered.

“Never leave an enemy at your back, luv, especially if you don’t know how strong they might be. It’s best to face ‘em.”

“And if they’re stronger than you?”

Spike turned and gave a wicked grin. “Strength isn’t everything. You have to be quicker, smarter, and more determined to live.”

“Right, because that’s worked out great for me in the past,” Xander said sarcastically.

“Considering that you’re still alive, and buggers stronger than you aren’t, it has worked out. Now shut your gob and focus.”

“Focus, right,” Xander agreed. The streets were full of desperate people and the insubstantial ghosts they dragged with them. If Xander had ever needed proof that teenage boys were ruled by their dicks, he would have it now. At least half the laughing young men who passed them dragged along half-formed images of scantily dressed women.

Right in the middle of the street, Xander stopped. “Spike, do you smell chocolate?” Xander asked.

Spike frowned and sniffed the air. “No.”

Xander turned in a circle as he tried to figure out where it was coming from.

“Are you sure you’re not imagining things?” Spike asked, but Xander ignored him as he darted between the cars and crossed the road so he could go east.

“Oi! Don’t get ahead of yourself,” Spike called. Then he was there, in front of Xander. He had his hand around Xander’s wrist, and he was holding tightly enough that the bones ground together. Xander tilted his head.

“Bloody hell, not here, ya moron.” Spike gave him a hard jerk to get him into an alley, and Xander prepared himself for more of the manhandling and potential bondage, but then the smell of chocolate damn near overwhelmed him.

“It’s here,” Xander whispered, and suddenly Spike let go. Xander blinked as he watched a woman in a business suit pick her way down the alley, carefully detouring around bags of trash.

Spike moved forward, keeping himself between her and Xander. “Right then, you have a problem?” Spike demanded, and from the tone, he had his vampire face out.

The woman stopped. Her short brown hair was perfectly trimmed to fall just below her jawline and her suit didn’t have a wrinkle in it. She looked Spike up and down before giving him a bored look that worried Xander a little. “You’re an inferior excuse for a monster.”

“I’m a demon, luv.”

“Demon? You, tortured in hell? I don’t think so.” She had the nerve to actually laugh at Spike. “And what are you protecting? What new abomination has escaped Purgatory now?”

Usually by this point, Xander would have been backing away and trying his best to hide in Spike’s shadow; however, Xander could feel a cold fury pressing up through his chest until he couldn’t breathe.

“Bloody hell,” Spike breathed, and Xander looked over to find Spike staring at him, his human face showing. “Mate, don’t even think about it.”

It didn’t make sense for Spike to be talking to him. That thing in the alley was the one who needed to think twice. Xander scented the air.

“Bloody… Harris, let’s calm down, right then?” Spike had on his talk-down-the-crazy voice, like he used with Dru, but that fact seemed too unimportant to take note of. All he cared about was the monster in the alley. It was pathetic. Disgusting. And it carried so much life force that Xander’s stomach rumbled in hunger. It was like looking at one of those chocolate fountains at a wedding, and Xander just wanted to stick his head in and drink it all down.

“Enough,” Spike snapped, and he grabbed Xander’s wrist, and for a second, Xander was stunned out of his hunger, out of his disgust and his fury and everything else. For one second, he was Xander Harris, and then the monster leaped at them, her mouth opening and opening and opening until Xander recognized the creature from Purgatory. It was one of those black smoke things. She reached for Spike, and Xander snatched Spike out of her way, tossing him backward before throwing himself into the fight.

He caught her arm, and her body twisted before her shark teeth blindly reached for him, but he shoved a thumb into the underside of her chin. His thumb broke skin, sinking into her flesh, and she screamed, but Xander couldn’t reach that rich life force that flowed under her skin. He stretched, feeling for the key, searching for some weakness. He could sense all that power and his hunger was becoming a living beast that ripped at him.

Hands caught him and pulled him backward, and Xander lost his grip on the monster. He flew back and he and Spike landed in a tangle of sharp elbows and bruised knees. The woman stumbled and had to catch herself on a trash bin, clinging to it as blood ran down her neck. Her human face was back in place, but it didn’t matter, Xander had her scent.

She turned and ran down the alley, her high heels clicking against the concrete. Blind and deaf to everything else, Xander leaped after her.

Their chase led through alleys and up fire escapes, across the roofs of buildings and down drain pipes. She did everything to lose him, but Xander charged ahead, gaining on her inch by slow inch. He could feel his reserves start to ebb, but all he needed was to catch her, and she would be his meal, Xander could feel it.

She staggered to a stop behind a restaurant and turned to face him, her mouth opening again, the tongue probing out into the night.

Xander slowed and then stopped a few feet from her. He couldn’t afford stupidity around her kind. He could feel the strength, older than even Eve, perhaps. But corrupt. Wrong. Disgusting. They were not part of the balance. Xander spoke the first words to come to mind. “You’re weak,” he accused the creature.

That shocked her enough that her human face returned. She snarled at him. “Humans are weak. You’re weak. This world was ours, and it will be again.”

“No. It won’t. Humans create, and yeah they destroy, too. But they can make art and buildings that reach to the sky and music, and all you do is consume,” Xander said. That’s what was wrong with them. They were creatures with only one ability. They had no balance. “You’re weak. You know only the strength of hunger, and that makes you disgusting.”

She looked down on him. “You talking monkey.”

Xander roared, and her teeth came out, and they threw themselves toward each other. Some little part of Xander whispered that Spike was going to kill him for going head to head with a creature he couldn’t even identify, but he didn’t care. He wanted her. He wanted all that power flowing under her skin.

She threw him toward the restaurant, but Xander grabbed her shoulder so that she followed, and they slammed into the brick together. Unfortunately, the brick yielded. With a shower of mortar dust and red brick pieces, they landed in the kitchen. Humans scrambled away, yelling and cursing, but Xander kept his hold on the monster in front of him.

She tried to back away, and he could smell the fear now. She had expected to eat him, but he was going to turn the tables. They slammed into one wall and then another, neither able to overpower the other. When her mouth came open again, Xander grabbed that long snake tongue of hers in one hand and punched the bottom of her jaw with his other. Her mouth slammed shut, biting off her own tongue. She screamed in pain, and suddenly all her power lay right on the surface of her skin.

He reached out, and the power flowed into him, filling him, pouring over him and drowning him in the scent of warm chocolate and the feeling of contentment. The monster writhed and twisted, the human form lost as limbs folded in on themselves and then the whole twisted, mangled body and sharp-toothed mouth went out like a popped balloon with a little puff and a few lingering wisps of black smoke.

It was as clean as dusting a vampire… cleaner because she didn’t even leave behind vampire dust. Sated and full, Xander lay back in the twisted wreckage of a pot shelf and let the power sink into him and flow under his skin. This is what it felt like to be full, to feel right in his own skin. He let his eyes fall closed as he wallowed in the simple joy of being filled up to the brim with goodness. Well, not goodness exactly, but it sure felt good.

“Freeze! Police! Put your hands up and do not make any sudden moves.”

Xander’s eyes popped open, and he looked to see uniformed officers pointing guns at him. Oh shit. Xander blinked, lost for a second as he tried to decide what to do, but a lifetime of watching television had taught him that there really was only one answer.

He put his hands up. “I’m unarmed,” he said in his own defense. Xander looked around at the huge hole in the wall and the wrecked kitchen. A stove had been shoved out of place and a refrigerator lay on its side. Aw shit. This was Buffy burning down the gym full of vampires bad, and Xander couldn’t even claim to be underage.

Xander kept his mouth shut through the reading of the rights and as the police frisked him and cuffed him, after a whole lot of discussion of the leather restraints and why exactly Xander didn’t have the keys. Honestly, he kept expecting Spike to show up and do something that would magically make the whole mess go away, but the police put him in the back of one of the cars, and there was not a Spike in sight.

Amazingly enough, he kept his mouth shut as they reached the station and had another round of conversations about why Xander didn’t have a key to the ankle and wrist restraints.

“Give the kid a break, Tanner, he doesn’t have the keys.”

“We’re going to have a hell of a time cutting them off,” the man behind the desk complained bitterly. He gave Xander a dirty look, like it was his fault. Xander was the guy with his hands flat on the desk waiting to get strip searched or something, so he wasn’t sure why he was getting blamed.

“Then get bolt cutters and stop complaining,” the other officer suggested. He stood with his foot on the inside of Xander’s instep and one hand on Xander’s wrist, making sure he didn’t move. Which funny enough, Xander wasn’t planning on moving. He had kind of blacked out a bit during the fight, and the last thing he needed was to have another mental brownout and wake up to finding a bunch of cops dead. Cops were good guys. Usually. This Tanner was a bit of an ass as he huffed and stormed away.

“You need to call your friend?” The officer holding him asked.

“Need? Yes. Want? No,” Xander confessed.

The officer looked at him with this intense look, and he did have a pretty good stare on him. “He’s going to be pissed, huh?”

“Oh, pissed doesn’t cover it.”

“Will he be angry enough to pose a danger?”

“What?” Xander instinctively tried to turn, but the officer’s grip on his wrist stopped him, and Xander forced his body to relax. “Spike is going to be pissed the way parentals are pissed with lots of ‘I told you’ and ‘If God gave you a brain, why can’t you use it?’ but with more British.” Xander watched Tanner come back out of an office with large bolt cutters. “He’s not dangerous to me, just my butt if he finds out I got arrested.”

The guy behind him chuckled. “Maybe you need your butt bruised for tearing a place up that bad. But honestly, this will go a lot better if you give the names of the other people involved.”

“That’d be awesome if I knew any of them,” Xander said. Everyone seemed to assume that a whole gang had attacked the kitchen, and Xander wasn’t disagreeing. That made more sense than two monsters fighting.

“We’ll get you booked in and then you can all your Spike and explain,” the officer offered, and Xander could tell that he even meant it kindly. However, watching Tanner take bolt cutters to the leather and steel cuffs, Xander cringed. Maybe he’d postpone on the calling of Spike because a bruised butt was going to be the least of his problems.


	17. A familiar face... sort of

Despite a serious attack of the cowardly, Xander called Spike as soon as they offered him a phone call, and was treated to a round of British cursing that could have stripped paint. What with the ‘bloodies’ and the ‘fucks’ and the ‘bollocks’ and the ‘wankstains,’ Xander got the impression that Spike was a little not happy. However, since Xander hadn’t been able to call until after sunup, there wasn’t much he could do either. Except swear. A lot. Creatively even.

And after that, Xander went back and sat in a hard orange chair and tried to make himself disappear. Considering that Xander had blown up schools and towns and construction sites and a bunch of other shit, considering that he’d stolen army weapons and set off weapons inside city limits and beheaded more demons than he could keep track of and buried more than that, he should have expected an arrest eventually. But he hadn’t.

He also hadn’t expected that getting arrested would be so boring. Xander tucked his chin close to his chest and tried to snooze, but the staff had put loose chains on him, and they bugged him more than all Spike’s bondage equipment put together. Worse, Xander was afraid of snapping the chain. He had no idea why he thought he was in danger of doing that, but he did. Maybe it was all the power from the monster flowing under his skin, but Xander had the feeling that one wrong move and he was going to send shiny silver links flying everywhere, and wouldn’t that be fun to explain.

“Harris!” a voice called. Xander was drifting in and out of awareness, just on the edge of sleep and the voice called again, closer. “Alexander Harris.”

Xander’s head snapped up. “Me! That’s me.” Xander tried to put his hand up, and felt the resistance of the chain, and the slow yield as metal started to buckle. He put his hand back down.

“This way.”

“Am I out of here, like getting bail?” Xander asked as he stood. He looked down, but other than a few warped links in the chain that led from his wrist to the waist chain, there wasn’t any real damage.

“You haven’t had a bail hearing.”

“So, no bail?”

The officer gave Xander a weary look, and Xander wondered where the older guy was. For a cop, he’d been pretty comforting.

“Hey, this is my first time. I’m an arrest virgin here, so I don’t know how the system works.”

The officer grabbed him by the arm and pulled him up toward the booking desk. “Normally you go in front of a judge and the judge sets bail. You then come back here and either someone bails you out or we process you into the longer term cells and find you some prison clothes.”

“Okay, that sounds less than fun.” Xander really didn’t think a long-term cell was an option for him. “And you said normally, which implies that something isn’t normal, which does not greatly surprise me. I’m not good at normal.”

“You have a visitor.”

Xander blinked. If Spike had to brave the sun with a blanket he was going to be in the worst mood ever. “Yippee,” Xander said weakly. The cop gave him an odd look, but then Xander was getting shoved into a small room with a table. He stopped when he saw the other person.

“Willow.”

She stood up, and it was Willow. It was Willow in one of those tailored suits that women wore when they were going on television or arguing a court case. But still, it was Willow.

“Xander.” She breathed the word and then started blinking, and tears were a real possibility. “We’ll be fine,” she said to the officer, clearly dismissing him, and surprisingly, he backed out and closed the door. That left Xander, shackled and in the company of quantum-mirror Willow. Given how his meeting with Quantum-Giles had gone, he wasn’t sure that was a good idea.

But then she turned that soft expression on him, and Xander could feel his worries fade. This was Willow, maybe not his Willow, but Willow. She came around the table, took one look at him, and then caught him in the most awkward hug ever. With his wrists in shackles, he could only stand there as she tried to get her arms around him. “Xander. You giant butt head,” she finally announced and when she stepped back, she punched him in the arm. This might be Willow, but her punch had a little more fire than he’d expected.

“What?”

“What? You’re asking me what?” She punched him again in the same spot, and it actually stung. “You’re not dead!”

“And this upsets you?”

She put her hands on her hips and narrowed her eyes. “What upsets me, you giant poop face, is that you didn’t tell me you weren’t dead.” This time she poked him in the chest with a very sharp finger.

“Hey, I’m not dead,” Xander announced with mock enthusiasm. She rolled her eyes at him, and this felt so right. “You found be because I hacked your accounts, right?” Xander asked.

“You what? You hacked my accounts?” And that was angry Willow.

“Never mind. I don’t know what I’m talking about. It’s the lack of sleep. It’s making me punch drunk and now I’m saying things that don’t even make sense to me. I would never hack your accounts. I couldn’t. Me and hacking. Not buds.” Xander smiled even wider, and slowly her anger faded and she ended up shaking her head.

“‘No’ probably would have worked better,” she said with a fond tone in her voice.

“Um… no?”

Weirdly, she stepped forward and hugged him again, this time harder. “Oh Xander. I’ve missed you. Why did I have to find out from your parents that you aren’t dead?” She stepped back and gave him her best conspiratorial look. “If I were you, don’t go near your parents right now.”

“They drank up all the insurance money, didn’t they?”

“Totally.”

Xander sighed. “Yeah, I could have guessed that.”

Willow gave him one more punch pretty much out of nowhere and then fixed him with her resolve-face. “Okay, mister. Now that I’m done hitting you, tell me why you didn’t call me.”

“Long, long, long, long story.” Xander moved to the table so he could sit on the edge.

“Uh huh.” She gave him a little ‘keep going’ gesture.

“And I thought you were in England at college or something.”

“Oh. I was. I finished early, and I got a job,” Willow said, and she had that catch in her voice like she was trying hard to avoid saying more. “But I want to know everything about this long, long story of yours.”

“Um, I’m not talking about it here.” Xander poked at thumb toward the camera in the corner of the room.

A frown flickered over her face. “Xander?”

“That’s me. Xander Harris, teller of tales impossible to believe.”

“Impossible to believe?” Willow echoed his words suspiciously. Yep, she knew something was up with him, but Xander wasn’t sure how much he could share or should share, and right now if Spike were here he’d be very happy to let Spike handle the whole mess.

“And not saying those stories in front of a camera would be the best way to avoid any long-term commitments or even forty-eight hour holds, if you know what I mean,” Xander added when Willow didn’t exactly look like she was ready to let the matter drop.

“Right.” Willow drew that word out.

Blinking, Xander slipped into his visions. Willow was there, her long red hair pulled back into a tight ponytail. Xander frowned. She had an odd expression on her face, a determination that Xander normally saw when she’d mastered a really tough spell, only this wasn’t his Willow.

“So, what have you been up to? Changing the world? Making your parents proud?” Xander asked, hoping to see that vision clearer. It had started to form, but when he mentioned parents, shadow Willow scattered, replaced by two very unhappy parentals.

“Making your parents unhappy with your grand life plans?” Xander guessed. Immediately the vision snapped into focus, and Willow stood on a stage in a uniform accepting a badge.

“Holy shit! You’re a cop?” The words slid right out of his mouth before he could edit himself or even think about the fact that talking about visions was on the slightly stupid side.

Willow’s eyes got huge. “Shhhh,” she said in that same tone of voice she’d used in eighth grade when she’d try to hush him and Jesse when they’d be talking about Cordelia and she was coming down the hall. Xander slapped a hand over his mouth. Well, he tried only to get pulled short by the chains. One of the links opened enough to leave a gap between the metal ends, and Xander let his hands fall to his sides.

“Sorry.”

“Geez, Xander.” She leaned close and whispered. “Stay here and don’t say anything. I’m going to make a few calls and try and get you out.”

“Right, shut up and sit still. I can do that.” Hopefully. Well, unless there was another mouth-demon attack, and how likely was it that he would have two of those in a day? Xander groaned as he realized that he’d just cursed himself. However, Willow was already gone, and Xander couldn’t have really explained his fears to her anyway.

Willow. A cop. Yeah, his Willow was into saving the world and she was the first to get out there and protect and serve, but not officially. The idea of Willow getting a paycheck for being Willow was… freaky. It was like Giles. There were parts of his Giles in there, but it wasn’t the same. But it wasn’t like they were in opposite land, either. Star Trek definitely got the whole alternate universes thing wrong.

Xander squirmed as he got himself up onto the table and started swinging his legs. What would he be like, if he was this universe’s Xander and he’d never had Giles to do the fathering, and of course if he hadn’t been killed in some earthquake, what would he be like?

He couldn’t be too different. Willow still recognized him. She hadn’t accused him of being a pod person or anything. Xander slowed his breathing and checked out the ghosts that occasionally floated through the edges of the room. So far, this was the most boring place in all of Chicago. Xander supposed that most doers of evil—or of good—avoided getting arrested.

It only took about half an hour, and the officer came back. “It looks like it’s your lucky day. Someone paid for the damages and the restaurant isn’t pressing charges.”

“Hey, go me,” Xander said, but his stomach was suddenly uneasy. Willow paid for the damages? He’d worked construction. He knew how much it cost to repair a load bearing brick wall, and it wasn’t pretty. Unless this Willow had won the lottery, someone she worked for had paid the bill, and that meant Xander now owed some law enforcement agency a whole lot of cash. Spike was going to kill him so dead that no one would find his dismembered body parts for the next century.

Still, there wasn’t much he could do that wouldn’t make an even bigger scene, so he smiled and went along as the booking desk filed their paperwork and then presented Xander with a pile of cut up leather cuffs and locks. Willow’s eyes got all big, and Xander shoved the pile back toward the officer. “You can throw those away,” he said. He wasn’t sure if they had some rule about that, so he quickly turned his back. “Ready? ‘Cause I seem to be a free man,” he said with a bright smile.

Willow hooked her arm around his. “I have missed that smile,” she said as she escorted him out into the sun. She led them to a bench under a wide tree, and Xander sat in the dappled shade with Willow’s hand in his.

“Okay, mister. That is your bad news face. Spit it out.”

Xander laughed. Clearly some things were pretty much the same in this world. And actually, that made it worse because Xander did not want to hurt her feelings. He looked down at where their fingers intertwined.

“Um, that’s a little hard.”

“Try,” she said in a softer voice.

“Is that Willow my friend or Willow the cop asking?” Xander asked.

She looked at him with those wide eyes of hers. In any universe his Willow was still his Willow. “Xander, this is me. I’ve spent years thinking my best friend is dead, and now you’re here. I think you owe me an explanation.”

“This is going to be pretty unbelievable,” he warned her.

“Trust me, I’m better with unbelievable than you might think.”

Xander slowed his breathing and watched while Willow’s specters started appearing. She was in a computer lab that looked more scifi than reality. “What if I brought up alternate realities?” he asked. The specters all shifted, and this time Xander could see four or five definite alienish devices. And Willow was trying to figure out which of them would have brought him to this reality. Okay, she was way off base going for freaky technology instead of demon, but his Willow was still right in the X-files trenches.

“Oh my god. You’re Scully. You’ve gone all Dana Scully in this universe,” Xander blurted.

“Shut up.” Willow slapped him on the arm.

“You are,” Xander said, but now he was talking in a whisper.

“Hey, I’m big with believing you. I’m weirded out, but I’m not unbelieving,” Willow whispered back.

“Exactly because you’ve gone X-files. You even have the red hair, but Scully is way scarier looking than you. I mean, I’m not sure how you pull off the whole intimidation by badge thing.”

“I don’t. Covert, Xander. As in stop talking about it,” Willow punched him again, but at least it was on the other arm.

“Right.” Xander couldn’t stop grinning. Willow was doing the X-files thing, and there wasn’t a better woman in the world for figuring out all the weird. “I can’t believe you’re Scully. So, where’s Mulder?”

Willow put her hands on her hips, and Xander shut up. He knew too far when he saw it, and she’d been pushed too far. “First, I’m the one who does believe,” Willow pointed out.

“So you’re Mulder? You look more like—”

She poked him in the stomach, which was pretty effective at making him shut up. “I’m not either. I am, however, annoyed. And we need to go somewhere quiet to talk.”

Xander’s stomach did a flip. “Um, Willow, I love you, but I really don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Why?” She tilted her head at him, and he swallowed down a big lump of want-need. Yeah, Spike was doing his own version of warm and fuzzy, but it wasn’t the same as having Willow hugs or curling up on the couch while Buffy critiqued some kung-fu movie. Buffy was very critical when it came to fictional ass kicking.

“You’re not my Willow,” Xander said softly.

She frowned. “The alternative reality… you mean, you’re not from this reality?”

Xander nodded. He could see the moment when her face just sort of crumpled. At first he was confused, and then he realized that she thought he’d just found his way home. Her Xander was still dead, and he was the interloper. “I’m really sorry,” he offered, and suddenly all her emotion vanished under this mask that his own Willow wouldn’t be able to manage in a million years.

“So, you’re another Xander.”

“Sort of stuck here while my Willow tries to figure out the whole mess,” Xander agreed. He stopped when a man in a baseball cap came strolling up dangerously close. He had dark good looks and sunglasses, but there was something in his gait that screamed predator. Xander shifted on the bench, uncomfortable with this guy’s attitude. He stopped a few feet away and eyed Xander with an almost amused expression.

“Rosenberg,” he said.

“Hey. I told you he wasn’t… well, you know.” Willow turned to Xander. “Xander, this is Major Dorsey.”

“Major… as in military or just the opposite of minor because you really don’t look minor.” Xander could feel panic crawl up the base of his throat. Oh god. Willow was military. And Spike was going to kill him, bring him back, kill him again and then bathe in his guts. How did he always land in the middle of trouble?


	18. Willow's interesting life

“You’re military?” Xander hissed at Willow.

“What? Me? No. I’m sort of military adjacent.”

“I can see I make you uncomfortable, Mr. Harris. That’s not my intention.” Major Dorsey held his hands out to the sides like that made him look one inch less intimidating. The guy was huge. His muscles had muscles, and it didn’t take a genius to spot the shoulder holster under his jacket. Nothing was going to make him look anything less than scary as hell. “We do have some experience with dimensional travelers.”

“Oh yeah, leave it to Willow to land in the weird,” Xander said softly.

Major Dorsey gave her an amused look. “Ms. Rosenberg is very capable of landing in trouble in any universe, I take it?”

Xander snorted.

“Hey!” Willow complained, but she kept her hands to herself. His Willow would have hit him. This Willow would have hit her Xander. But now there was a distance between them.

“Mr. Harris, I understand you have no reason to trust me, but I’m asking that you trust Ms. Rosenberg. We need to talk, and it shouldn’t be on the streets.”

“And yet we have that whole I have no reason to trust the military thing going on,” Xander pointed out. He knew what the military had done to Spike, and now that he was on the other side of the demony fence, he was way less okay with it.

Dorsey and Willow traded meaningful looks, and Xander tried really hard to not ache at one more piece of evidence that this wasn’t his Willow.

“Look, maybe I should just make myself scarce, you know, until my Willow can get this fixed.”

“How can another Willow fix this without access to…” Willow blushed, and Major Dorsey moved so that he was standing at her back. “access to stuff,” she finished lamely.

“Smooth, Will,” Xander said. “But my Willow will fix this with her witchly powers of witchiness.”

“Witch?” Willow blurted the word out so loud that it started a bird in the tree over them. “Oy gevalt. I can’t be a witch. I’m Jewish.” She leaned closer. “I would not sell my soul for power.”

“Of course you wouldn’t,” Xander immediately agreed. “All Willows in all worlds would be saying no to the selling of souls, well, except for that vampire Willow we ran into, but vamp Willow definitely didn’t have a soul to sell. Why would you think that?”

“But…” Willow looked up at Dorsey, but he seemed more interested in watching their perimeter. Oh yeah, this guy was all military. Xander’s arm hairs felt like going to attention. Willow sighed. “A witch is someone who has dabbled in the dark arts, and that means demons and deals.”

“Or it’s someone who has tapped into the whole mother Earth goddess religions and white magic and who then feels a need to add a whole bunch of lectures on the evils of stereotyping ancient religions and pagan beliefs to her set of lectures on misogyny and the evils of assuming that Santa visits every house.”

“He has your number, Rosenberg,” Dorsey said with some amusement.

“Oh, shut up.”

Dorsey smirked at her before turning his attention to Xander, “So, the magic isn’t exclusively evil in your world?”

Xander shook his head. “Only about seventy percent evil. I mean, it’s easy to go evil if you’re on the power path, but plenty don’t.” Xander tried really, really hard to not look at Willow at that exact time. Nope, he was not getting into discussions of Warren. Nope. Not going there.

“And you’ve had some problems with the military,” Dorsey guessed. He held up his hand before Xander could say anything. “And you don’t have to tell me, but I’ll tell you right now that my only goal here is to protect my favorite geek. She’s a valued team member, and I would happily gut you if you threatened her for one second. However, unless you plan to threaten her, I don’t have an agenda. There’s no law against getting caught outside your home dimension.”

“That would be an awkward law to get past the Congress,” Xander agreed, “but I know this is really doing weird things to you guys to see me being not being dead, and I’m sorry,” Xander said as he studied Willow. She chewed on her lower lip. “Giles was hugely with the not amused, and I don’t think I’m going much better with you.”

“Giles?” Willow frowned.

“Oh god. You never… I mean… I…” Xander stopped. Without Buffy around to bring them together, there was no reason for Willow to ever meet Giles, but he’d been such a big part of their lives that Xander couldn’t quite think about Willow without Giles. When her own parents were doing the crushing her in guilt thing, Giles had made her feel better. He’d taught her things that made her feel special.

“Is this is a love interest?” Dorsey asked with a teasing look down at Willow.

“What? No! Oh my god, no. Ick. Giles is more… parental,” Xander said. “Okay, maybe I shouldn’t say this because this isn’t my world and Spike is definitely going to give me all kinds of crap about sticking my nose in where it doesn’t belong, but Rupert Giles was our expert in all things that went bump in the night. He has books on books on books about demons, and in my world, he worked with the slayer, the one girl in all the world with the powers to kick demon ass while still complaining about her inability to find a cute pair of shoes she could afford on her allowance.”

“Allowance?” Dorsey urged Willow closer to Xander and sat on the bench. Clearly the rule about not talking about confidential stuff in public only applied to their secrets.

“Um, the slayer would get her power at fifteen, and after that it was a game of balancing the whole secret identity with the need to no get kicked out of high school,” Xander admitted.

“Oy,” Willow breathed softly. Dorsey’s dark hands flexed like he wanted to grab someone and choke them.

“Yeah, Riley had that reaction when he found out, too,” Xander said, “so it must be a soldier thing, but Willow and me were just there. And yeah, fighting demons at fifteen isn’t exactly great, but it’s not like we didn’t win our fights. And here, you guys have those Winchester boys, and they were fighting demons when they were like… I don’t know, six or seven? They were way younger than us.”

“I fought demons when I was fifteen?” Willow asked, her voice getting all shaky.

Dorsey reached out and rested his large hand on her knee. “You aren’t getting near a demon fight without me and the guys with fully automatic weapons and hex bags being there with you.”

Willow swallowed and nodded. “I guess I shouldn’t be all that shocked. We know that alternate dimensions have some resonance with each other, so if I’m part of the fight here, it makes sense to be part of the fight there,” Willow said. “What about Jesse?”

She asked it with such an innocent, open air that it took Xander a second to really register what she’d asked, and then it took several more seconds to realize that big old stones had just dropped into his belly.

“It looks like you lost your friend. I am sorry,” Dorsey offered.

“Jesse?” Willow asked. “Jesse’s dead? I can’t imagine growing up without the three of us.”

Xander tried hard to shove all those old memories back in their box, but now that she’s said his name, specters of Jesse rose up from the pavement. The Jesse in his graduation cap pressed up against vamp Jesse, his face twisted with malicious glee the way it had been two seconds before Xander had staked him.

“A vampire…” Xander stopped. Before he could say anything else, Willow reached out and grabbed his hands and held on tightly.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, and his Willow had never said that. His Willow had been in so much pain that she’d rushed past all the grieving. And even though he didn’t doubt that she’d cried at home, there was some little part of him that had always wanted to hear that. He pulled one of his hands free and wiped away the tears.

“I had to…” Xander stopped and took a breath, and all the specters scattered to the wind. “I had to dust him.”

“Oh Xander.” Willow still had one of his hands and she held it tightly. She might not be his Willow, but she had a heart just as big. And he didn’t want any Willow in danger if he could protect her. And yes, the idea of him protecting her was pretty amusing because Willow in any universe was a scary thing.

“But Rupert Giles, who on paper looks like a stuffy old English guy… or not so old English guy,” Xander added as he realized that Giles and Dorsey were about the same age, “is this total genius with all things that go bump in the night. I tracked him down the second I got here because I was a little weirded out, and in this universe, he’s an expert and a hunter and a little terrifying. But I know it’s still Giles down under all the gruff, so he’ll do anything to save the world. Anything,” Xander said. Willow was still giving him tragic face, but Dorsey nodded.

“Rupert Giles of England. We will look for him to see if he wants an alliance.”

“You may want to avoid mentioning me,” Xander said.

“Oh?” Dorsey gave him a one eyebrow up look. Other than the fact that Dorsey was huge and clearly military and black, Xander would have said he looked exactly like Spike.

“When I went missing, my Willow sent backup through until she could figure out how to undo what someone else did, and my backup is of the less than human variety.”

Willow jerked her hand back. “A demon?”

“As in a human that’s been to hell? God no,” Xander said. “The only person I know who’s gone to any hell dimension is Angel, and he deserved to go. If Willow had sent him through, I would have been greatly tempted to shove a piece of wood in him, even if is an ally at least fifty percent of the time.” Xander made a face. While hating Angel with a passionate fury was a little childish, he was willing to sacrifice his maturity for a good cause. “The whole humans selling their souls thing is not nearly as common in my world, and most of what we call demons, you call monsters.”

“So a monster is your backup,” Dorsey checked. He had a good poker face going, but then so did Willow.

Xander shrugged. “Hey, not all monsters are all that monstrous. Clem’s people… his people’s demon name is unpronounceable even for Giles, so I have no hope. But other than his bad habit of eating kittens and getting Willow’s PETA speech, he doesn’t do anything evil.”

“And he feeds on…” Dorsey let his voice trail off, but it was pretty clear that he thought the only answer would be humans. Xander flashed on his own meal of giant-mouthed demon-monster thingy. Yeah, not all monsters liked human flesh.

“Embarrassment,” Xander said, “which is why he was best friends with me, and then he went off and was Harmony’s best assistant.”

“Harmony Kendall?” Willow asked. Her eyebrows went all the way up.

“Yep, only vampire Harmony Kendall. Sometimes she still does evil stuff, but honestly, she’s no more evil than she was as a human. But anyway, Harmony is such a…” Xander waved his hand to show how impossible it was to explain Harmony. “Between the people who are embarrassed for her as she makes a fool out of herself with that show of hers and the men who humiliate themselves trying to get in her bed, Clem is very well fed.”

Dorsey leaned closer. “She’s a vampire with a show?”

“Well, sort of. It’s this whole internet show, and most people think it’s cheesy vampire pseudo-porn. Not that I’ve watched.” Xander felt his face warm up. “I’ve never. I mean, it’s Harmony, so I wouldn’t.” Xander groaned and let his head drop into his hands. “In my defense, it started as a morbid curiosity thing,” he said, his voice muffled in his hands. He rolled his head to one side, and Willow’s mouth was open in an “o” and Dorsey looked more than a little amused. “I’m in hell,” Xander whispered.

“Xander Harris. You watched Harmony do porn?”

“I watched Harmony try to do pseudo porn,” Xander corrected her before sitting back up. “And as far as monsters go, Harmony is more the sort to call one of those celebrity shows and try and spread rumors about someone having a pedophilia habit than the type to end the world. And Clem is harmless. And the Oden Tal are actually way more on the side of good than anything else, although they do get really cranky and burn people to death when backed into corners.”

“So monsters are good?” Willow asked. Her voice had gone all hard and brittle and hugely disbelieving.

Xander shook his head. “They aren’t good or bad, and more often than not, they’re hungry, and trying to play nice with a hungry rabid wolf would be way smarter. But some are really, really evil. Lots of kind of evil, and most are generally just interested in getting a meal, and we happen to be the easiest food source. And yes, I know your world is different because you have, I don’t know, weird good versus evil issues. Our world is a little more about grays. And then sometimes you have monsters that are actually good and care about honor and justice and upholding the family name. Groo is scary honorable, way more than me. He’d cut his own arm off before he’d run away from a fight screaming like a little girl, and me… yeah, both arms still attached.”

“Rosenberg?” Dorsey asked.

Willow was shaking her head. “It’s not possible. I mean, if there were any, wouldn’t we have met them?”

“Any what?” Xander asked.

“Non-evil monsters,” Willow snapped at him. Okay, Quantum-Willow was cranky.

“Actually, the non-evil sort usually do their best to make sure no one ever meets them. When Spike was evil, he was all ‘bloody look at me be bloody,’” Xander said in a fake British accent that would get him killed if Spike ever heard it. “But after he fought to earn his soul back, he was not really big on letting anyone know who he was. He’s pretty low-key now.”

“Your backup used to be evil?” Dorsey checked.

“Oh yeah. He once hit me over the head with a microscope and kidnapped Willow to make her do a love spell because his vampire girlfriend fell out of love with him after a hundred years. It makes Romeo and Juliet look a little pathetic.”

“And he’s your backup?” Willow’s face scrunched up. “And just for the record, I don’t do spells, and if he tried to kidnap me, he would end up a very dead monster.”

“For the record,” Xander said, “he died saving the world, and he doesn’t kidnap people anymore. Usually. And when he does, it’s because that’s the right thing to do. Since he earned his soul back, he’s done more to make the world safe than anyone, except for maybe you and Buffy.”

“Buffy?” Dorsey jumped on the name. Xander had the feeling there was a tape recorder somewhere.

“She was the slayer, but I checked, and there’s nothing to say slayer, so she’s just one more young woman shopping for expensive shoes,” Xander said apologetically. “I wish I could help with that, but if you hook up with Giles, he’ll have all sorts of neat tricks.”

Xander frowned as something skittered across his skin. He looked around.

“Problem?” Dorsey immediately stood, and Xander was more than a little creeped out that Willow reached under her jacket, revealing a shoulder holster of her own.

“Um, less creepy crawly than the big old mouth demon, but someone’s here.” Xander stood and turned in a slow circle.

“Psychic?” Dorsey asked.

“It looks like,” Willow agreed. “Xander always was the one who seemed to know when the bullies were coming or how to avoid the teachers. Jesse and I called him Radar, like Radar from MASH, you know?”

Xander stopped. His Willow had never done that, but then this wasn’t his world.

“Okay, then the other question is what mouth demon are you talking about?”

“The woman whose whole head opened into a mouth, and there was this tongue, and she…” Xander stopped. Okay, how did you explain to people who hated monsters that you were an alpha monster?

“That’s what was in the restaurant?” Willow asked in a horrified voice.

“That’s why you went for a kitchen, for the cleaners,” Dorsey said, and he gave Xander a very approving look. “I wouldn’t recommend taking on a Leviathan alone, but I’m impressed that you survived long enough for rescue to come.”

Xander opened his mouth and then closed it again. There was just not a good way out of this.

Turning toward a limestone building, Xander started walking. “Trouble?” Dorsey asked as he fell in behind Xander with Willow next to him.

“You could say that, mate,” Spike said as he stepped into the shadowed archway. “Harris, I’m going to chain you to a soddin’ bed until you learn to keep out of trouble.”


	19. Spike is not amused

“Oh boy, considering I got kidnapped out of my dimension while sleeping in my own bed, staying out of trouble is harder than it looks.” Xander tried giving Spike a smile, but it definitely wasn’t working.

Dorsey moved to the right, and Willow to the left. Oh this was not good. Xander moved so that he was standing next to Spike and facing off against Willow. “Hey, guess who I ran into, Spike,” Xander said as brightly as he could to make up for all the dark emotions he could feel roiling under the surface. Yep, Spike and military—not a good mix.

“You must be Spike. I’m Major Dorsey, US Air Force.”

“Bully for you, mate. Now shove off.”

Dorsey and Willow traded looks.

“Oh bloody hell. Look Red, I know you don’t know me from Adam, but I’m not here to cause you and yours any trouble. However, I’m not a fan of the boys in green, so get your pet soldier out of here before we have an accident.” Spike talked to Willow as he poked his thumb in Dorsey’s direction.

“You want me to send him away?” Willow looked absolutely alarmed, so Xander was guessing she’d never had to step up and take charge in this world.

Spike hooked a thumb in his belt and looked her up and down for a second. Slowly, he grinned. “Nice cover, luv. I do appreciate the wide-eyed look, but you have steel under all the camouflage, and you always have. Now, the boy gave you the hint about Rupert being in the know. Take that and sod off.”

“Uf. You aren’t that nice,” Willow complained.

“Rosenberg, let’s move out,” Major Dorsey suggested. He had his hand on the butt of his gun now, but Xander was more worried about the big ball of sun in the sky. If these guys knew Spike was a vampire… actually if they knew he was a vampire, they would assume the sun would only be uncomfortable and that a stake to the heart wouldn’t work. However, they’d probably try to behead him.

“Xander, are you safe with him?” Willow asked without showing any interest in leaving.

“Totally,” Xander nodded. “Well, mostly. He’s going to completely kick my ass and make me miserable about the whole getting arrested thing.”

“And then some, pet. Hell, Rupert is in town, so I have the feeling that you’ve set off all sorts of alarms by getting your name put in the system.”

“Giles is here?” Xander wasn’t sure how he felt about it.

Spike nodded. “Trolling downtown looking for the lair.”

“Which is fairly rude. I mean, we could have a nice four-star hotel for all he knows.”

Spike rolled his eyes. “Stop giving them information, ya nit,” Spike said with a jerk of his head toward Dorsey. Xander looked over at the soldier in confusion.

“You have given us a lot of intel,” Dorsey agreed. “We need to investigate the possibility of non-hostile… monsters, although the commanding officers may be less than enthusiastic about that thought. There’s someone named Buffy and a soldier named Riley who were both significant fighters for your side in your own universe. There are alternative magical sources other than demonic, and Rosenberg has an aptitude for them, although given your response when talking about power corrupting, something there worries you, so she must have had a rough patch.”

“If I started using magic at fifteen, I’d be more shocked at not having a rough patch,” Willow said. “I had my teen angst issues.”

Xander shook his head. “Your girlfriend was killed right in front of you. This guy… he wanted Buffy dead, and Tara was just there, and her blood… it splattered.” Xander stopped and frowned. That was a day he didn’t want to relive, but he couldn’t let Willow think that something like teenage angst could have driven her to evil. “But you turned away from hate and came back to us.”

Willow took a deep breath and nodded. “Okay, but I am not lesbian. I truly am Jewish, which I might have mentioned once or twice, so no girlfriend and no collateral damage. I’m truly sorry for your Willow.”

Spike answered when Xander couldn’t get the words out. “She’s strong. She’s survived everything the world threw at her and then some. But you aren’t her. I can’t say I want anything to do with you.”

He turned to Dorsey. “And you can take that information and do what you like, but you leave the boy alone. Clear?” Spike let yellow bleed into his eyes, and Dorsey held up one hand in a placating gesture.

“You have a right to protect your geek, and I’ll just worry about protecting mine. I do plan on following up on those leads unless you have a good reason I shouldn’t.”

“Piss in a windstorm for all I care,” Spike offered.

Dorsey nodded again. “Then let me just give you some numbers. If you want them, fine. If you throw them away, fine. But I do understand from certain mission reports others have turned in that travelling dimension poses special problems, and I will do my best to help as long as helping does not compromise our position or put Rosenberg on the spot.” Moving slowly, Dorsey pulled a card out of his inside jacket pocket. “The numbers are private.”

Spike looked at the outstretched card like it was infected with the plague or something, and Xander darted forward and grabbed it. “Thanks,” he said softly. “He really isn’t that bad when he isn’t scared shitless about whether we’re going to get buried under some military complex, stuck in an all-white cell with scientists that poke and—” Xander had a lot more to offer, but Spike reached out, caught him by the back of the shirt, and yanked him back.

“You’re a menace, Harris. I should hand you over so you go mucking up their plans instead of mine.”

“But then you wouldn’t have… yeah, I’m done,” Xander quickly said when he saw the thunderous look on Spike’s face.

Dorsey laughed. “He sounds like Rosenberg.”

“They babble the same,” Spike agreed before he ran his tongue along the inside of his lip. This was bordering-on-violence Spike, and maybe Dorsey knew it because he started backing away.

“Come on, Rosie. You can tell me a whole bunch of stories about your Xander as we catch a ride back to Colorado.”

“But.” She stopped and made a little frustrated noise that Xander knew so well.

“Bye, Willow,” he said softly. He could see how close she was to crying, but it wasn’t for him. It was for her Xander. And her Xander lay at the bottom of a deep crevasse opened by an apocalyptic earthquake.

“Bye, Xander,” she finally said as she started backing away. Xander watched as they headed down the street. After a half-block or so, Dorsey moved closer and put a hand on her back, and she leaned closer. They were teammates, partners. She looked to him when she needed to cuddle on the couch and watch Bollywood movies.

As soon as they were gone, he turned to Spike. “I can explain.”

“Save it, Harris.”

“No really. I mean, yeah, I was totally wrong, but I found out about leviathans, and they actually aren’t very large fish.”

Spike grabbed him by the shirtfront and slammed him back into the wall hard enough that Xander’s teeth clattered together. “Save it. I don’t want to hear one thing out of you until we get back to the lair. Got it?” His eyes were totally yellow, and the ridge on his nose almost rippled as it appeared, vanished, and reappeared.

Xander nodded. Okay, clearly Spike had reached his breaking point. Xander kept his mouth closed and silently vowed to just keep his head down and take whatever punishment Spike doled out. The specters rose, and Xander watched as the fanged four walked down the street. Darla was in a long red dress with fancy trim, her hair up in an old-fashioned style that most women would never wear outside their wedding day. Angel had long hair and a dark suit with a long coat, but Spike… he looked absolutely gleeful as he leaped over a dead body and caught Drusilla around the waist and swung her around. His dark brown coat and light shirt were splattered with blood.

Xander could almost feel Spike’s glee—his power—his absolute belief that he was strong enough to do anything, and that gave him the right to do everything. Right, Xander was definitely getting the point, even if Spike wasn’t saying anything.

After growling at Xander for a second, Spike turned and stalked off. Xander followed behind, much of his earlier joy drained out. The specter of pre-soul Spike danced with Drusilla in their wake as they headed for a sewer entrance.


	20. Mother Henning, Spike Style

Xander’s knees hurt, but something told him that he wasn’t in any real danger as he went on hour four of kneeling on the concrete floor. If he were still human, he definitely would have been crippled, maybe permamently. However, Xander was starting to think that he would never be human again.

Spike stopped pacing and grabbed another cigarette and lit it. He seemed to be alternating between quiet cursing and furious pacing/smoking. Xander flexed his fingers and pulled on the rope just hard enough to feel the strands go tight around his wrists, and that then pulled the rope tight around his ankles. Yep, Spike had taken the threat of hogtying him and had made it less of a threat and more of a reality, but Xander wasn’t all that shocked.

China-era Spike still danced around the room, but he’d been joined by cross-burned into his chest post-soul Spike. Subtlety wasn’t one of Spike’s great talents.

“If you ever do that again,” Spike finally snarled, and considering they were the first words Spike had said in four hours, Xander nodded. He was willing to agree with anything at this point. “You didn’t know what you were up against. You didn’t know how to kill it, and you just bloody rushed in there like a fool.”

China-Spike leaped into the air.

“I know,” Xander said softly.

“You have no idea what your powers are. You didn’t even soddin’ look to see if you were making a spectacle out of yourself. There were entirely too many humans on that street, and you had to go and make that soddin’ leap.”

“What leap?” Xander asked.

Spike dropped his cigarette on the floor and stomped on it before giving Xander a blistering glare. “What leap?” he demanded, his voice dangerously slow. “What leap? You soddin’ little pillock. You leaped over the fucking cars on the road and landed on the far side before chasing that monster through the alley.”

“I did?” Xander could feel a growing sense of horror and panic. “In front of everyone?” That was so not good. That was as not-good as having glowy eyes. Shit.

Spike dropped down onto an overturned box. “You prat. You didn’t know? Bloody hell.” He suddenly looked very, very tired.

“I smelled chocolate, and I couldn't resist,” Xander said in his own defense. He got a yellow-eyed glare in return. “Really, really good chocolate. It was irresistible.”

“Well you’d better start resisting,” Spike said wearily.

"That or avoid hunters," Xander summed it up. If he couldn't hide, he was going to end up fighting way too much, and since he actually liked hunters, he really didn't want to do that.

Xander wondered what would happen if he ran into Sam and Dean Winchester. And actually, Xander wanted to run into them, but more on a fellow-fighters-of-evil basis than a monster of the week. However, if he showed up glowy eyed and jumping over cars, one of the Winchesters was going to try and kill him for sure.

For a long time, the room was silent, and Xander fidgeted on the cold floor.

Eventually Spike stood and went back to pacing. With every turn, he walked right through gleeful China-Spike, but on about his fourth pass, Angelus appeared next to spectral Spike, leather pants, whip and all. Xander quickly started breathing. He really didn't want to know what Angelusy thoughts Spike had rolling around in his head.

"From the fact that you were around to get arrested and the other git wasn’t, I assume you won," Spike said slowly. He turned and gave Xander a cold glare.

“I kinda ate her,” Xander agreed, “which would be disgusting only by eating I mean I absorbed all her energy until she went poof and vanished in black smoke.”

Spike moved so fast that Xander didn't actually see him move. He just suddenly had Spike right there in his face. “You enjoy that?” Anger rolled off Spike's skin, and Xander's breath caught in his chest. He wanted to lie, he really did. However, Spike deserved better.

Xander sighed. “Too much,” he agreed. “It was like Halloween and stuffing my face with way too much sugar, but loving it anyway.”

The fury under Spike's skin faded and he took a step back. He seemed to take a second to regroup, and then he sighed. “I suppose I couldn’t keep you from figuring it out eventually.”

“Figuring what out?” Xander asked.

Spike gave him a wry smile. “How good it feels to feed from someone. Animals won’t fill that need after you’ve fed for real, not completely.”

Xander felt like he'd been kicked in the stomach. The air just left his body. Spike thought he was going to go feeding on random people, and Xander couldn't decide if that was offensive or just really sad. Did Spike think he was weak or was his own need for human blood so strong that he really couldn't imagine Xander feeling any other way? "I'm not looking to go out and eat the locals." Xander kept his voice soft and cautious.

"You sure about that, Harris?" Spike demanded.

"Totally and completely," Xander said firmly. "I know I was way off base going after the leviathan demon. I really get that Spike, and you have every reason to be slightly totally and completely pissed, but people? Not so much with the smelling like chocolate. They don't smell like food. I don't need to feed on random people, or even specific people. This is me saying no to any and all eating of people."

Spike looked down at him, and Xander didn't need the visions to feel the disbelief.

"Honest," Xander promised. "I wasn't tempted to eat any of the cops, not even the real jerks. I did, however, bend a few of their chains. Luckily, none of them noticed."

Spike snorted. "You say that now," he said, and he wasn't even pretending to believe him.

"I say that always."

For a second, Spike pressed his lips together, and Xander suspected that if he sought out his visions right now, Angelus and that whip of his would be right in his face. It took some time before Spike seemed to get control of his temper. "Harris, you're playing with fire."

"Played. I played with fire, and actually that's oddly accurate because as a kid I kind of did play with fire, but in this case, I'm saying that the fire was less firelike and more just really hot." Xander gave Spike his best smile.

Spike whirled away and started pacing again. "You're a bloody fool, and you don't know how deep you're in."

Xander sighed. He couldn't exactly deny it, because he did know the ice was pretty thin under him. "Maybe," he said slowly. The fact was that he didn't feel any more in danger now than he had two days ago. He was still just as disgusted when Spike wallowed in the memory of the orphanage.

"No maybe, Harris. You are. And you're too bloody young to know you're in trouble. You're not getting yourself killed on my watch."

That was a strange proclamation of not-hatred, but Xander figured that Spike was more likely to cut off his own leg that come any closer to saying anything mushier. Xander opened his mouth to say something equally not-mushily nice, but Spike had turned his back and stalked off to the other room. Great. Xander sighed as he squirmed. Spike's attitude was about as frustrating and annoying as Clem's cooking, but he's come to another universe just to back Xander up, so yelling seemed a little rude.

Not that Xander had a problem with rude.

Usually.

He sighed again. Before he could make any stupid decisions, Spike was back, and holding something. At first Xander thought Spike had more cuffs. At this point he'd welcome cuffs because they were a whole lot more comfortable than rope. Never before had Xander had such an opportunity to consider how scratchy and uncomfortable rope could be.

However, Xander then got a good look at what Spike had in hand, and it was not a cuff. Oh, it was the same leather, the same metal reinforcement, and even the same lock. But the thing in Spike's hand was way too big to fit around a wrist.

"Crap," Xander said.

"You brought this on yourself," Spike snapped, but he also stopped. Mixed message much?

"I'm not saying I didn't. I get it Spike. I was stupid. I was flaming piles of stupid on huge mounds of idiot. I shouldn't have gone after the leviathan. I shouldn't have jumped over the cars or talked to the military, although that last one may actually turn out not so bad." Xander looked up hopefully, but Spike did not seem amused. "That was more of a general, generic 'crap,'" Xander explained. "That's my 'oh god there's a pop quiz' crap or a 'holy flaming crap Spike is putting a collar on me 'crap.'"

"There are days I wonder who taught you English," Spike complained, but complaining about the lack of speaking skills was almost friendly territory with them. It was familiar territory, anyway. The less familiar part was Spike walking up to him and fitting the collar around his neck. Xander swallowed, and the feel of the padded leather pressing against the front of his neck made him aware of every twitch.

"You're thinking of killing my English teachers, aren't you?" Xander asked. Spike clicked the lock in place, and Xander stretched his neck. The muscles on the side didn't have as much room as they needed, and stretching made the collar press into his skin.

"Just making sure they never teach anyone else again. Death would be optional."

"Good to know," Xander said. Truth was that his English teachers probably deserved flowers and condolences more than death. After all, Spike only had to listen to him. Those women had been forced to grade his essays. Maybe. Xander suspected that some just gave him a D on everything he wrote so he'd pass and never darken their classroom door again.

"So... um... are you calm enough to listen now?" Xander asked.

Spike's mouth almost dropped open. "You're asking if I'm bloody calm?"

"Hey, it's been hours, and you hogtied me and now you collared me, and face it, you always get calmer when you get to really put me in my place, and I am feeling very in my place."

Spike snorted.

"See, that's your 'I'm feeling more relaxed' snort."

Spike narrowed his eyes. "I'm thinking about gagging you."

"Well, yeah. You're also probably thinking of chaining me to a wall. But listen, these people are sort of apocalypse heavy." Xander paused as he tried to figure out how to say the next part.

"Don't say it," Spike warned.

"But we know that Willow is working for someone that knows about dimensions and demons, and Giles knows all about the demons. And they aren't working together. Think how much better they could be doing if they were working together."

"No."

"You don't know what I'm going to say."

"I don't soddin' care. The answer is no." Spike walked over and locked a chain onto the collar and wrapped the free end around his hand. "You're going to stay on a leash until you get control of yourself, clear?"

"But we have to go out and--"

"No, we bloody well don't, and if we do, we'll tell people you're my gay bottom boy, got it?" Spike wrapped the chain around his hand several more times until the chain was taut and Xander could feel the pull.

"Got it," he agreed. "But if we could offer them--"

"No."

"Just a few hints about--"

"No."

"It might--"

"No," Spike about shouted. He also gave the leash a hard tug that almost pulled Xander forward, which would have been really bad with this hands tied behind his back.

Xander took a deep breath and looked up at Spike's clear blue eyes. "It's the right thing to do," he said softly. It was. These people may not be his, and the world wasn't exactly their world, but fighting bad guys wasn't a part-time job.

Xander blinked, and checked the specters. William had returned with his notebook and glasses, and a whole bunch of new victims lay scattered across the floor. Well, they weren't new new because from the clothes, some were from the last century, but Xander hadn't seen any of these before. He definitely would have noticed the pile of nuns with mangled limbs and mouths that still worked to say their rosaries. Actually, that was the single most disturbing image Xander had ever seen.

"Um, Spike, what's up with the nuns, and please tell me that wasn't you who did that."

"That's the ponce's game, the nuns," Spike said, and Xander didn't have to ask which ponce. Angel. Or Angelus. Xander still wasn't convinced those were actually two separate people.

"Way creepy, and way to creep me out thinking about them."

Spike snorted, but he also loosened his hold on the chain, so Xander wasn't sure what sort of message he was sending. "I never tried to stop him," Spike said slowly, and if Xander hadn't been tied hand and foot, he would have thrown a fist up into the air and done a Snoopy dance of victory. Maybe some of that showed on his face because Spike glared and tightened his hold on the chain. "But if we try to help these morons, we do it my way."

"Yep, totally," Xander agreed.

"No running off into some battle half-cocked."

"Absolutely."

"No trusting gits when you don't actually know them."

"Got it."

Spike actually snarled at that, but Xander was agreeing with him. He was totally and completely agreeing with all Spike's conditions. "Those make sense," Xander said. They did.

"I'm reminding you of that when you ignore everything I said and go running off like the bloody moron you are." Spike sounded grumpy, but he walked around Xander and started cutting rope.

Xander winced. Okay, the only thing worse than getting tied up was getting cut loose. Every joint seemed to creak and his limbs were pretty much on fire with pins and needles. "Ow."

"This is nothing compared to what I'll do if you ignore me again," Spike warned, and then he used the collar and chain to jerk Xander to his feet.


	21. Shit, meet fan. Fan, shit.

"I bloody hate this," Spike complained, but he kept walking down the street. Xander pressed close, anxious to hide the chain leash from as many people as possible. He really thought that Spike would reconsider the leash. After all, it made them very conspicuous, and Spike hated conspicuous. Unfortunately, pointing that out had led to discussions of how much more conspicuous they would be if Spike hogtied Xander and hauled him around in a little red wagon. Xander wasn't willing to test Spike’s patience and see if that was an exaggeration.

He reached the park and stopped. In their own world, parks were either full of screaming kids and skateboarders, or they were full of homeless people and people buying drugs. This park was full of nothing, nothing, and more nothing. Well, it had grass and an old swing set that looked like a great setting for a horror movie, but Xander had noticed that this world had a whole lot of potential horror scenes. Between the peeling paint and the cheesy wallpapers in every hotel, Xander was starting to think the good taste gene had died out of the human genome.

"There they are," Xander said, pointing at Willow and Dorsey.

"Not blind, am I?" Spike snapped.

Xander decided that discretion was the better part of something, and he kept his mouth closed. Dorsey walked slightly ahead of Willow, even though Xander could see her barely controlled energy.

"So, Spike," Dorsey said when they were close. "Meeting in the middle of the night in the middle of a public park. You take paranoia to whole new levels."

Spike flipped two fingers up into the air.

Dorsey laughed.

"Xander!" Willow said cheerfully, but then her smile slowly faded. "Xander, are you okay?" she asked as she came around to stand next to Dorsey.

"Yeah, sure." Xander pressed closer to Spike's back and did his best to hide the chain. Of course that didn't hide the collar, and Willow's eyes seem to find and stare at that thick leather. Score one for Spike's overprotective, obsessive nature. "Really, I'm good. He's just a little cranky about me running off and chasing a monster when we didn't... Yeah. I'm fine," Xander finished. Nice, he'd about outed himself as a monster, which would be so very bad. This wasn't his Willow. Heck, his Willow wasn't thrilled with the whole alpha thing.

Dorsey put a hand on Willow's shoulder. "It's not like we haven't had one or two discussions about putting you on a leash, Rosie. You do get yourself in trouble."

"No I don't," she complained softly, and in a voice that made it really clear that she knew she was lying.

"Hey, I'm not saying 'no' to Spike, so really, it's okay," Xander said. He knew Willow and she was not going to drop this until she knew that all was right with the world. "You don't need to worry about me, not unless I let my stupidity get ahead of my common sense, and I do that on a fairly regular basis."

"So, Spike is in control?" Dorsey checked.

"Only totally and completely," Xander quickly agreed. "And that's fair because Spike is not only stronger but way older. Way, way, way older."

"Oh, how old?" Dorsey asked, his voice suddenly not nearly as casual. Willow's eyes were still focused on Xander's collar.

"Old enough to have been killing when you were still in nappies," Spike said. Yep, that would be Spike's version of subtlety. Xander really wished he could see Spike's face so he knew whether this was normal sort of Spike posturing or actual anger.

Dorsey nodded. "And were you always the sort of monster who tries to protect the world?" Dorsey didn't even try and hide his disbelief.

"Our general isn't really much with believing that monsters can be good," Willow added apologetically. "Not that we're saying you're evil or anything. Because we wouldn't say that."

"Actually, the general did say Spike was probably evil," Dorsey said with a shrug. "Sorry."

"No worries, mate. Most monsters you'll ever meet are evil. I was myself for more years than not," Spike said. "Few monsters care one bit about humans or their problems. Most would just as soon humans died off and left the planet to them."

"Actually, I think most would rather eat humans... or watch human television. A lot are pretty obsessed with television," Xander pointed out. Spike glared at him.

"This isn't a joke, Harris," Spike said firmly.

Xander suddenly realized that he could use his visions to try and figure out what Spike was feeling. He focused and slowed his breathing until the ghosts all started forming out of the mist. William appeared first, his notebook in hand. Okay, good. So Spike was more curious than anything else. The lack of Angelus was even better.

However, Xander also noticed a man with greying hair and a gun slung over his shoulder who stood just behind Dorsey. He rested one arm on the gun and glared at all of them. Okay, someone was thinking about a really cranky soldier-guy. Even creepier, a ghost Xander appeared. Willow was clearly thinking about her Xander--a slightly pudgier version of him with an equally ugly wardrobe. Why had he ever thought that plaids and stripes looked good together? And seriously, had the other him never heard of Clearasil? Xander was less than impressed.

"Xander!" A jerk at his neck broke him out of his reveries.

"What?"

"So, psychic?" Dorsey asked as he eyed Xander.

"Me? No," Xander said slowly. He wasn't sure what he was. He looked at Spike.

"We're not talking about him," Spike said with a growl. "I'm here because he feels like he has to help you seeing as how this Red looks like his. I don't bloody like it, so keep your questions to yourself or I'll rip your gonads off and make ya eat them."

From Dorsey's response, Xander was guessing that gonads were something that he didn't want ripped off. Yep, it was time to get control over this conversation before Spike threatened them out of listening.

"And let's not start trying to kill each other," Xander said firmly. He wasn't entirely sure what they others had said while he was spacing, so he went back to the last bit of conversation he had paid attention to. "Spike does have a history as a bad guy. He never wanted to end the world, but he was kind of okay with killing. However, he switched sides."

"Because?" Dorsey asked his voice sharp. The ghost soldier with gray hair brought his weapon up and moved a step closer. Xander made a mental note to avoid Dorsey's friends.

"I fell in love, didn't I?" Spike said.

Willow's eyes went right to Xander.

"With Buffy!" Xander blurted out. "He fell in love with Buffy, who is a girl and not me." Xander backed up until he ran out of room on the leash.

Spike just snorted.

"And that's because she is way stronger and faster than me, or at least she is in my universe, because Spike is not attracted to weak, and actually, that seems to be pretty universal in the non-human crowd."

Spike interrupted before Xander's case of verbal diarrhea could go any farther. "Not really, luv. Plenty of 'em like to keep humans as pets or farm animals, and they aren't particular about how strong the human is."

"Not helping, Spike," Xander complained, but oddly, the gray-haired ghost seemed to stand down some. Willow’s friends seemed a little short on the sanity.

"I'm not going to make them think that monsters are safe to muck around with," Spike said firmly. "Most of 'em will gut you as soon as look at you, not because they're evil but because you aren't the same species. They don't have any more qualms with killing humans than a human might have with killing a cow."

"Hey, I wouldn't kill a cow," Willow protested.

"And plenty of monsters feel the same," Spike said, his voice softer. "But they aren't safe, and most monsters that like humans do their best to stay clear in order to avoid conflict."

"That sounds almost reasonable," Dorsey said, thoughtfully, "but more importantly, you said you had information for us."

Xander poked Spike in the back. Spike turned and gave Xander a dirty look. However, before Spike could start talking, Dorsey jumped in.

"For example, what sort of monster are you and are there more of you?"

Because Spike was looking at him, Xander watched his eyes yellow, and then Spike turned toward the others. Willow gasped and took a fast step backward and Dorsey moved to a spot right in front of her. They moved together so smoothly that Xander definitely got the idea that they had worked together for a while.

"We haven't seen any more of Spike's type of not-human," Xander said quickly before Spike could go and call himself a vampire. He wasn't a vampire--not their kind of vampire--and Xander really didn't want them to know that.

"How long have you been here?" Willow asked. "Have you seen a lot of monsters from this dimension?"

"Um, one," Xander admitted. "But we read those books about the Winchesters."

"Books?" Willow asked. “Research books?”

Xander blushed. “Um, sort of,” he hedged. “The guy who wrote them made them into these cheesy paperbacks, but Giles' father said that the books about Sam and Dean Winchesters are real, so that means that all the monsters they fought are actually real."

Dorsey nodded. "Okay, let’s go over to the table and sit down so we can talk about all this."

"Let's just make it fast," Spike complained as he started moving toward the empty picnic tables. Since he was on a leash, Xander didn’t have a whole lot of choice about following. A dark van pulled up and Spike stopped and tugged on the leash to keep Xander close. Xander was really starting to hate the whole being leashed thing.

"What the bloody hell is he doing here?"

"Xander said he would be an ally," Dorsey said, and that was the point when Xander recognized the van. Giles. Psuedo-father figure Giles. Weird Quantum-mirror Giles. Giles who he had escaped from. Shit shit shit.

"He might be your ally. I doubt if he's interested in making friends with us.” Spike started backing away.

"More like making enemies with us," Xander agreed. He didn’t even try to slow Spike’s retreat.

Dorsey moved closer to the SUV. "We already agreed with him that there would not be any violence. This is about sharing resources and getting to know each other.”

“You share with each other, then,” Spike said. He whirled around, and Xander scrambled out of the way. However, two strides into a stylish retreat, Spike stopped. Xander ran right into his back, and with his hands resting on Spike’s shoulder blades, he could feel the vibrations of Spike’s growl.

“We just want to talk,” Dorsey said in a calming voice. However, it didn’t do much to calm Spike.

“Move ‘em, mate.” Spike’s warning made the hair on Xander’s arms stand up. He slowed his breathing and watched ghosts appear. Dozens and dozens, all hiding in the shadows at the far side of the park under the trees. Shadows waited in the parking lot and along the road. Soldier shadows, and a few decapitated bodies that were definitely less than real. Real decapitations came with a lot more screaming and flailing.

“Spike,” Xander said softly.

“I see ‘em.” Spike turned to face off against Dorsey and Willow and now Giles and Giles’ stepfather. Xander frowned. Had he ever known the guy’s name or was he just blanking out due to the blind panic?

“I see you got them here,” Giles said with a very not friendly look in Xander’s direction. “How did you get out of the warehouse?”

“Mostly by following Spike,” Xander said, and Giles’ unhappy look turned in that direction. That was fine. Spike handled unhappy better than he did.

“Rupert, let’s hear them out,” his father advised.

“Yes, let’s listen to the monsters.”

Dorsey cleared his throat. “I understand your concern.”

“No, I really doubt you do,” Giles said, cutting the guy off with the sort of cold disdain Xander knew all too well. Giles was the best pseudo-father in the world, but when he didn’t like you, he was a little scary. “The government is rather incompetent Johnny-come-lately to this affair, and you are far more likely to bollocks it all up than provide any sort of useful support.”

“Arrogant in any universe, aren’t you?” Spike asked, and Xander held his breath as the cranky levels rose.

“Hey, let’s all just listen to each other,” Willow interjected. “When people listen to each other, they can make healthy compromises.”

“With a demon,” Giles said, and his own father didn’t seem to be disagreeing. “They are dangerous.”

“So am I,” Dorsey pointed out. “But right now, I have as much reason to believe them as I do you. More, in fact. They took on a leviathan. I haven’t seen anything from you but attitude.”

Giles’ father stepped forward. “I can assure you that we have handled far more for far longer, and I’ve gotten attitude from men tougher than you and all your men put together. The only reason for a demon to try and negotiate with the government is to cause some sort of trouble.”

Willow jumped in. “This is not listening. We are all talking about our own assumptions without listening to each other. That is not a helpful strategy here.”

“I’m negotiating with them because you lot can’t keep your own apocalypse in line,” Spike said with a nasty smile, and this whole thing was circling the drain fast. Worse, Xander didn’t know how to stop it. “But if you lot don’t want our help, we’ll be perfectly happy to bugger off and let you get on with sending your world to hell.”

“Um, not so happy about that, Spike. I like the world unhellish.”

“Not our world, not our soddin’ problem.” With a snarl in the general direction of Dorsey and Giles, Spike headed for the street. There were the fewest ghosts waiting there, but it meant that they had to move dangerously close to Giles and his father. Both men retreated, hands reaching for weapons, but Spike moved so fast he was past them before they reacted. And that left his back to two enemies. Actually, it left Xander’s back to the enemy since the leash forced him to trail behind.

For a few seconds, Xander thought the bluff might work. He really did. But then two men stepped out from behind the van and brought weapons up. Xander didn’t have any time to react before he was flying sideways, thrown free of the line of fire by Spike. Unfortunately, Spike didn’t get out of the way of the spray of bullets.

Someone shouted, and soldiers tumbled out of the trees, but Spike was already up and snapping the neck of one of the machine gun guys. That seemed to make him a target as soldiers fired at him, blue energy dancing in the air. Xander watched while Spike’s whole body seized up, and then he crumpled to the ground.

“Spike!” Xander leapt up from the ground and charged toward Spike, panic clawing at his guts. The blue energy fired again, and Xander didn’t have time to duck. It hit him like running into an electric fence, and for a second, he was surrounded by blue, but then the energy faded and Xander reached Spike. He was still in one piece and unbreathing, and Xander had to assume he was okay. The blue energy hit him again, and Xander twitched and flailed as it coursed through him. Worse, he could see some of the energy transfer into Spike, making his body dance in uncoordinated jerks.

Xander didn’t actually make many choices after that. He felt the rage, the hot fury, claw his way out of his chest. He didn’t remember moving, but then he had both hands around the neck of the soldier who’d fired. Energy flowed into him, sour and bitter, but Xander didn’t care about the taste. He only cared about his anger. Spike was hurt.

Blue energy slammed into him again, and he dropped the soldier and jumped toward the two new men. His muscles shook from the force of the energy, but he grabbed the two and threw them as hard as he could before jumping into the air to avoid another energy discharge. He landed right behind Dorsey, and the soldier seemed to turn in slow motion, his weapon slowly swinging around in an arc.

Xander grabbed Dorsey by the neck and felt the energy begin to flow. He didn’t have the same bitter to him as the other soldier, but there was a strong sour in with the sweet, and Xander’s hungry rose up to feast as it hadn’t with the other man. Dorsey dropped his gun, his head falling back as though it was too heavy for his neck to hold it up. Xander could feel that fire of life grow dim until it was little more than a glowing ember as Dorsey’s knees buckled. With his hand still around Dorsey’s neck, Xander sank to the ground with him, that sweet-sour energy filling his every sense. But something nagged at him, tugging him back to the world.

“Xander. Xander, please don’t!”

He blinked and Willow was there, clinging to his arm as soldiers pointed weapons and screamed orders and didn’t fire because Dorsey and Willow were in danger.

“Xander, don’t do this,” she begged, her green eyes wide with fear and hope and that same Willow-determination that had sent her into every demon fight in town since she’d been fifteen years old. “Please.”

The last ember start to fade as Dorsey stopped breathing and his heart stuttered. Horror wrapped around Xander’s soul as he realized he was killing a man who truly was trying to save his world. And yeah, he’d been stupid, but if stupidity were a capital crime, Xander would have died years ago. Guilt pressed up against the base of his throat, and it tasted like bile. Xander didn’t want Dorsey dead. He didn’t.

His palm started to tingle, and Xander could feel the ember of life pulse to life for a second. Focusing, Xander pushed. He pushed against the guilt and the hunger and the sheer horror of having nearly murdered someone, and he could feel Dorsey’s body start to warm, the fire weak but growing.

“Major? Oh please be okay,” Willow sobbed as Dorsey started to cough. Xander let go of the man’s neck, and blue energy seemed to hit him from every side. Xander’s body jerked, but he couldn’t push through the pain now. His body stiffened and then the darkness hit him like a brick wall, and Xander should know. He’d been hit by more than one brick wall in his life.


	22. Not his world, not his Willow

Xander woke up unhappy. Under other circumstances, his first complaint would have been the heavy steel restraints around his wrists or the way his shoulders ached from having his arms behind his back too long. But today, Xander decided his biggest complaint was the dull gray cinderblock walls and bars. Yep. Prison cell. Even worse, Spike was nowhere in sight.

Xander groaned and rolled onto his side. “Ow ow ow.” That hurt. Xander got himself upright and realized that he was definitely not in a jail cell built for a human. No toilet, no sink, no nothing, or lots of nothing, depending on how you looked at it.

“Hey,” Xander said to the guard who stood with his back to the bar. The jackass didn’t even twitch. “Hey, I’m awake here. Would you like to tell someone that?” Nothing.

With a sigh, Xander leaned back against the cold concrete wall. He hated the government.

Xander took a few deep breaths and braced himself for whatever might come—tortured demons, werewolves taken apart at the joints, hellmouthy type fun. Instead he saw only the faintest of ghosts. A blonde woman with eyes that glowed slowly paced and a guy who looked a little like a middle-aged He-man stood looking indignant. But both were faded imitations of visions, and Xander could tell they were attached to the cell and not any people by the solid edges. People’s thoughts tended to get all fuzzy around the edge and then dissolve into some other thought.

Like the guard. He was totally thinking about having sex with his very beautiful girlfriend, but the edges of his girlfriend kept fading out so that the woman looked more and more like Kirstie Alley from her Cheers days.

“Seriously, I do not need to see your Kirstie Alley fantasies. Besides, your girlfriend is way cuter.”

That finally caught the guard’s attention. He whirled around with murder in his eye, and all Xander could do was flatten himself against the far wall of his cell.

“At ease, airman.” Dorsey walked in.

“But sir…”

“Hey, the general told you to avoid thinking classified thoughts. I think he pretty much assumed that’s where your mind would go,” Dorsey said. “It’s okay. Step out and catch a breath of fresh air. You and your Kirstie Alley fantasies have five minutes to then get back here.”

“Yes, sir,” the man agreed before leaving.

Dorsey leaned against the far wall and looked at Xander. “So,” he said slowly, “I hear you almost killed me.”

“So,” Xander shot back, “I hear you attacked two people who’d agreed to meet under a truce.”

Dorsey flinched. “Actually, it was Giles’ guys who opened fire. Our people just came in when the free-for-all started.”

“Oh, well then, that makes everything okay.” Xander pulled against the hard steel around his wrists.

“We arrested the two who brought guns to the park. They’re being charged with federal firearms violations, public display, endangerment, and generally pissing off the general, and the general does not like being pissed off. Or poked. Or told to play nice.” Dorsey shrugged.

“And Giles?” Right now, Xander wanted Giles in the cell next to him. He would say he wanted Giles in his cell so he could bawl the man out, but Giles still kinda scared him.

“We didn’t have a reason to hold him.”

“And you do have a reason to hold us?” Xander pushed himself up onto his feet, and Dorsey took a fast step back. “Where’s Spike? Is he okay?”

“You know things are different with you and Spike.”

“Because we’re monsters?” Xander demanded. “Hey, newsflash. Neither of us actually asked to be monsters. Both of us just had the bad luck to run into scary and slightly less than sane women. I was saving the world way before I got monsterfied, and I’m trying to do the same thing now, and Spike closed a hellmouth and stopped a whole Armageddon on his own, even after he’d joined the legions of the unbreathing.”

“In your universe,” Dorsey said.

“Yes, in our universe. We haven’t actually been in this universe very long, and right now I’m kinda thinking I don’t want to stay here any longer than I have to. You don’t have the welcome mat out.” Xander’s voice was rising into girly-pitch land, but he couldn’t get himself to stop and breathe.

Dorsey nodded. “If I could help you leave this reality, I would.”

“Right.” Xander dropped down onto the narrow cot. “You’d just escort us home and wish us luck. I’m not actually as stupid as I look.” Xander frowned. That hadn’t come out the way he meant it.

“I never thought that. I came to that meeting honestly hoping to work things out, and while clearly this is not a best-case scenario, I do still hope we can talk.”

“Then give me Spike back,” Xander said. He had to clamp down on all the panic and fear that rose just at Spike’s name. What if they’d dusted Spike? What if he was really seriously hurt and they wouldn’t give him blood? Xander tasted the metallic bile rising in his throat.

“He’s two cells over, Xander. He took fewer hits than you did, and he woke up several hours ago.” Dorsey smiled. “He’s giving the guys down there whole new lessons in British profanity. They’ve had to look a few things up.”

“Then let me see him.” Xander stood again, hope rising.

Dorsey shook his head. “You’re in isolation because… because of the mind reading tricks.”

“I’ve read Spike’s mind already. It’s less fun than you might think,” Xander pointed out. Right now, he was expecting lot and lots of Angelus and whips and reckless young Spike with blood, blood, and more blood. Wait, why was he asking to share space with Spike again?

“The general wants you in isolation,” Dorsey said almost apologetically. “However, Willow would like to see you.”

Xander stopped breathing. Willow. He so could not deal with Willow right now. Dorsey was a stranger, so he could kind of understand the whole betrayal thing, but Willow… they were friends. Willow knew the other him, was best friends with other-him, and she still helped put him in a jail cell.

Xander had all kinds of things to say about Willow visiting, but he couldn’t get his tongue untangled long enough to say any of them. Dorsey took a step back, and the nameless guard returned, this time with Willow right behind. She had on a black t-shirt and army style pants with her red hair pulled up in a high pony-tail, and maybe that made it easier because she didn’t look like his Willow anymore.

“I’ll give you guys a few minutes,” Dorsey said. “Airman.” Clearly the two of them shared some sort of military hive brain because the nameless guard answered, “Yes, sir,” like he knew what Dorsey meant.

Once Dorsey was gone, Willow took a step forward and then stopped. “Xander,” she said in that tragic voice of hers, the one that normally came with baked goods and apologies.

Xander shook his head. “You aren't Willow. At least you aren’t any Willow that I want to know.”

She flinched. “I know you're mad right now, but see this from our side.”

“I know that my Willow would never have done this to me. I know that when Oz got werewolfified, my Willow didn't turn him over to the government. In fact, when the government kidnapped him and threatened to torture him, she saved him. She went up against the whole government to help her friend, and because it was the right thing to do.”

“You don’t understand.”

“I understand you're more the Nazi version of Willow with the hating of people because of who they are,” Xander snapped.

“Xander!" Willow's eyes went all big and her hands came up to her mouth. Guilt crawled up Xander's throat, but he refused to back down. So instead he turned his head so he faced the gray wall. This was so very bad. From now on, he was going to listen to anything Spike said, especially if Spike said it was a bad idea to get mixed up with anti-demon government forces. Yeah, that one seemed pretty obvious in retrospect. Willow’s breath came in little wet gasps, and Xander pulled his legs up under him and stared at the corner of his cell by the head of his cot. What an interesting corner. It had two walls and a place where the walls met and grout.

"Talk to me. What you did out there..." Willow sounded so wounded.

"If a vamp bit you, it wouldn't be your choice to be a vampire," Xander said softly. He was about to add that it would be her choice about whether or not to be evil, but actually, most demons didn't really get a choice, not the ones that took over human bodies, anyway. Vampires and werewolves pretty much killed people.

Only Oz didn't... not anymore. He'd done the whole zen thing and stopped being evil. And even before the soul, Spike had been evil light. And Xander didn't think he was evil. Did a person know if they'd turned evil?

“Xander,” Willow said softly. “I know you’re in there somewhere, but you’ve been turned, and we’ve seen what happens to people who get turned, and I don’t blame you for that.”

“But you’ll lock me up for it,” Xander finished for her.

“You haven’t asked about the people you hurt. I know Xander Harris, and he would never hurt anyone.”

Xander looked over his shoulder. “You never knew Xander Harris because the only reason he didn’t hurt anyone was because he was never strong enough. He wanted to punch every bully that ever called you a name. He wanted to dropkick Cordelia Chase off the top of the tallest building on campus because she made you feel like less of a person just by picking on your clothes, clothes which were just fine for someone who wasn’t trying to impress the entire football team. He wanted to wait until Larry had him on his knees and then punch that bully so hard in the balls that he coughed up blood. Xander Harris wanted to hurt a lot of people.”

Xander took a deep breath. “But having more power means you have to stop wanting to hurt people, even people who attack you. So no, I don’t care about those men because I tried my best to not hurt them, but they attacked me and they hurt me. If you think I’m going to let that happen, then you don’t know human nature very well.”

Xander watched Willow fight with her emotions. He took deep breaths because right now he didn’t want to know what she was thinking. He didn’t want to sympathize with her. He wanted to be angry because she never had seen him, not her-Xander and not the him who was here now.

“When they take me out to murder me, don’t lie to yourself Willow. You just helped kill Xander Harris. Right now you’re helping them kill me, and that’s after I’ve spent most of my life protecting the world from monsters. The only human I ever killed was keeping the teeth of the women he murdered as a souvenir so he could jerk off at night. That’s how far people have to go to get me into a killing mood, but your friends here, they aren’t going to take that much, are they? They don’t need any excuse at all.”

“Xander,” she whispered, tears finally slipping free.

Xander couldn’t take it. He turned away and pulled his knees up so he could bury his face in them. With his hands cuffed, it was the only way he could hide away from all this wrong.

“Xander, look at me,” Willow begged, but he tilted his head so she could only see the back of him. She wasn’t his Willow. She’d never cried on his shoulder or held his hand when he’d been hurting and didn’t want to tell anyone because he was afraid of getting called a wuss. She hadn’t gotten drunk with him as they toasted to lost lovers after Sunnydale fell into a hole. This wasn’t his Willow.

Closing his eyes, he kept telling himself that until her soft pleas vanished and he was alone again.


	23. And that would be a new power... or two

Bored, Xander had started stretching with his visions, seeing out any sign of life. Dorsey had claimed Spike was near, but either Xander’s visions didn’t reach two cells over or he’d lied. Xander wasn’t exactly big on the trust right now. However, oddly, Xander found he could reach out in one direction. It was like some magnet kept pulling him downward. Sometimes he felt the pull right under him, and sometimes off to one side, and once… thank god only once… the pull had gone up and up and up so far that he felt like he might get sick as something inside him stretched and stretched.

But that sense of pull was back in place below Xander somewhere. He let himself drift toward it.

Xander watched through someone else's eyes as a group gathered around a long table. Willow sat near, and Xander's stomach lurched as the world sudden swung around to the right even though Xander hadn't moved. At least he didn't mean to move. He ended up jerking and his head thunked against the cinderblock.

"Ow," he complained softly. The guard at the door didn't even move.

After a heavy sigh, Xander slowed his breathing and focused on that room. Either he'd developed a new skill or his imagination was working overtime. The gray-haired scary soldier who had appeared in Xander's visions earlier sat at the end of a long table.

"Feel free to start explaining," the grey-haired guy said.

"When the two subjects attempted to leave the area, I attempted to verbally engage them. At that point, Mr. Giles and Mr. Simons both objected to the two non-humans leaving the area." Xander had the odd feeling of movement... like he was talking, only it was dream talking. Yep, his sanity was totally in doubt at this point.

"So, our bright, shiny new human allies tried to kill two monsters who gave us good intel. Sweet." The gray haired guy leaned back in his chair and rubbed a hand over his face. "You know, when I said I didn't trust this Harris guy, I didn't actually mean you should try to kill him."

"Yes, sir," Xander replied in that dream state.

Willow spoke up, and Xander had another of those dizzying moments where the point of view swung around wildly. "Xander wasn't trying to hurt any of us. He stopped when I asked him to. I still don't believe he's a bad guy."

"Did you see the same thing I did on the surveillance video, because if that was Harris not trying to kill you, I really don't want to see what this guy can do if he puts his mind to it."

"But he wasn't putting his mind to it," Willow said.

Xander could feel emotions floating to the top--an intense desire to believe Willow, hard and jagged doubts, and a hot fear that made his gut ache, a growing feeling of helplessness, the sense of someone’s hand pinning him like a bug on the ground. Since Willow still seemed to be on team Xander, even after he’d verbally flayed her, Xander pushed aside the other emotions and focused on that trust in Willow. Willow was always right--or right often enough that she was worth believing. Xander could feel the subtle shift in emotions, and his stomach started to settle.

"They didn't seem to target individuals," the dream Xander said.

"That's not exactly what I saw," the grey haired man said. He turned his chair, and Xander curled his hands into fists as he had another moment of vertigo. The lights dimmed, and Xander watched the screen as he and Spike walked up to Dorsey and Willow. They’d had video cameras going. He mentally added "sneaky" to the list in his head that already included "manipulative," "evil," "backstabby" and "assholish." Yep, he had all kinds of words for these people.

Xander watched as they all shared some small talk before Spike started leading him toward the camera. Looking at it from the outside, the leash was more than a little obvious. Yeah, Xander was looking a little like the family dog as Spike strode toward Giles and his adoptive father. Both fell back, but Giles’ father reached for his pocket.

Xander knew what happened next, but watching it from the outside made a whole lot more sense than being in the middle of the flailing. Two men came out from behind the van. Both wore camouflage like army guys, and they raised big old machine guns and opened fire. Xander watched as Spike threw him to the side, taking most of the bullets right in the side. He was up in an instant. He grabbed one of the guys and snapped his neck cleanly before leaping to the top of the van and reaching for the other.

This was about where Xander's own memories turned into strobe light-ish visions of fists and flashes of light and random mayhem. Watching from the outside made it easier to follow the action. Light flashed, and an unfamiliar word flashed into Xander's mind--zat. It was an alien energy weapon. Xander should probably be more weirded out at the idea of aliens, but somehow it was all so very normal.

Xander watched Spike whirl around and then collapsed with a snarl.

Xander turned so fast that the chain twirled around him. Giles was running toward him, and Xander watched as his eyes and hair turned red. He opened his mouth in some sort of soundless shout, and Giles brought up his weapon. Men were running out of the woods. These guys were all in black with the alien guns. Okay, so maybe Dorsey had told the truth about not opening fire because one of the alien weapons caught Giles’ father in the back and he fell to the ground.

Xander watched as his body leapt up into the air, and not in any sort of human way. Holy shit. Xander could feel someone else echo his own shock as his leap left Giles firing at the air. He couldn't move fast enough, and Xander landed right behind him, grabbing Giles' arm and flinging him to the side. Oh yeah. If Xander had seen someone else doing that, he definitely would have been thinking demon. He would have been thinking really bad demon--like call Buffy in the middle of the night and get her on scene type demon.

The one remaining guy in fatigues from team Giles raised his weapon, and Xander moved so fast that the film blurred. In a blink, he was in front of the guy, and then Xander hit him with the flat of a hand against his chest. The man flew back with such force that his gun flew into the air. And then the soldiers started firing.

Xander watched himself turn, and on the video he could see the moment when he realized that the soldiers were over Spike. And holy shit, those were vampire teeth. He had grown vampire teeth. He'd grown vampire teeth on steroids, and he charged at the soldiers.

The video was pretty damning as Xander tossed several soldiers to the side. One fell to the ground, and Xander knelt over him. Xander's palms itched as he remembered feeding. Dorsey appeared them, firing his weapon right at Xander. Instead of dropping dead like a good little human, Xander snarled, and then leaped at Dorsey. He grabbed him by the shirt and pushing him onto his back before he started feeding. Anyone who looked at the tape was definitely going to come to the conclusion that Xander was feeding.

Then Xander watched as Willow appeared on the video. Her mouth opened in a silent plea, and Xander watched as his head came up. The emotion in his own face made his heart ache. He'd nearly killed Willow's friend.

Another energy blast flashed across the screen, and Xander watched himself stand up and look around for the source. The soldier was too close, and Xander casually grabbed him and threw him at least twenty feet into the air. He landed in a crumpled tangle of limbs. Another blast hit him, followed by a third and fourth, and then Xander watched himself finally collapse into an inelegant heap. After that, Dorsey was up and yelling, and soldiers rushed around the park. Xander didn't want to watch this, but he couldn't turn away. He physically couldn't get himself to stop looking at the images. Holy crapola he’d done some damage. Buffy was so kicking his ass if she ever saw this, and now that he was all demonified, she really might make that literal ass kicking.

Willow spoke. "Is Benjamin okay?"

The gray-haired guy shrugged. "He's better than Cooper. Frasier seems to think that Harris was feeding off him, and he's going to take a long time for him to recover. You're lucky, Dorsey. That could be you in the infirmary."

Xander sucked in a breath as he realized whose eyes he was seeing through.

"Yes, sir," Dorsey said. He nodded, and Xander swallowed the bile that threatened to come up as the vertigo got worse.

"But Xander stopped the second I asked him to," Willow pointed out.

Grey-haired guy rolled his eyes. That seemed a little mean. "Rosenberg, you yourself said that in his universe, you're into magic. You and Harris might be on the same side in his world, but I'm not convinced that's the right side."

"You think I'd be evil?" Willow sounded horrified.

"Rosenberg, I think you'd be a terrifying bad guy. I really don't want to even think about it too much. What information do we have on these Winchesters? Keep in mind, if you tell me that these books are true, I'm making someone do the research on The Simpsons."

Dorsey laughed. "Sir, I think we can safely say that Springfield isn't real, but Rosenberg has some interesting background."

"If by interesting, you mean terrifying," Willow said, "then they're interesting. I've been able to confirm most of events from the first six books using police reports and news stories, and I don’t have one piece of evidence to contradict the account. The descriptions of monsters, the places, the people, the deaths… they’re all accurate."

"So, we have two civilians who fighting with no backup and who are targeted by the law more often than not. Great," gray-haired man said wearily. "I'm too old for this crap. So, do we know where these guys are now?"

Willow scrunched up her nose. "It's hard to track them down. I can give you snapshots of where they’ve been, mostly based on how much chaos they leave behind, but trying to find them right now is kinda hard.”

“It’s the whole running from the law gig,” Dorsey said. He rested a comforting hand on her arm. “You’ll find them, Rosie.”

Xander felt his heart stop. Literally. He’d stretched out so far that for a few seconds, his heartbeat went the way of his breathing. It was a very disconcerting feeling, and he focused on forcing the muscle to start beating again. It meant that he lost a little of the conversation. By the time he refocused, they military folk were talking about gaining intelligence about other universes while Willow had on her tragic eyes.

Xander wasn't an expert on military-speak, but he was pretty sure they were talking about torturing him and Spike for information, which would not be good. Besides, Spike had been through all kinds of Angelus torture, so the US military probably wasn't going to be big with the impressing.

Knowledge floated into Xander's awareness. Psyops. Building trust with the captor. Subterfuge. Xander caught a passing thought that darted through Dorsey's mind as quick as a paper airplane, but he caught that sucker and held on. He clung to that idea, fluttering it to catch Dorsey's attention. It was the guy's own thought, after all.

Dorsey cleared his throat as Willow and gray-haired guy talked about potential ways to test Xander's energy absorbing skills. She might not be happy, but she wasn't digging in her heels and refusing to test on her best friend, either. Traitor. Xander was really starting to get emotional whiplash dealing with Willow.

“He’s not your friend. In fact, we have some pretty good evidence that he’s one of the most dangerous monsters we’ve come up against on our own planet,” the gray-haired guy pointed out when Willow finally mentioned ethics.

“He didn’t kill anyone.”

“Yet,” the leader added. “He didn’t kill anyone yet, which is not the same as he won’t kill anyone, and can we please try to find a way of controlling him before he takes it in his head to do some killing? I can’t be the only one just a little bit uncomfortable with how he threw soldiers around like dolls and brushed off multiple hits with the zat.” The guy held up two fingers to show just how little that “little bit” was. He then spread those fingers out to get bigger and bigger.

"What about putting the two subjects together?" Dorsey asked.

"Major?" Gray haired guy seemed unimpressed, but now that Dorsey had said the words, Xander could feel him throw everything into convincing the general that it was the right call. That was funny considering Xander had needed to really push to get the damn words to even come out of Dorsey’s mouth.

"We know that Spike was attempting to exert control over Xander, and he was more than a little angry that Xander ran off to fight a leviathan on his own."

"Okay, I might like this kid a little," gray-haired guy said, "but I don't see how letting these two sit in the same room helps us."

Dorsey shrugged, and Xander could feel the ghost of that gesture in his own shoulder. "Spike was quick to demand answers when he caught up with Xander at the jail. Maybe he'll get answers where we couldn't."

"Take the soft approach," gray haired guy said thoughtfully.

"Yes sir. If they turn out to be allies, the soft approach would keep us from burning any bridges."

"And if they're hostile?"

"Considering that Harris took four simultaneous shots with a zat before he went down, I don't think that we're going to get information out of him without some serious persuasion," Dorsey said. When he looked over, Willow looked nearly nauseous. Xander was feeling the same. Serious persuasion did not sound fun.

"Okay, we can try that," gray-haired man said. "However," he quickly added, "try and keep in mind that these two are monsters." He looked right at Willow, and she ducked her head. "Dorsey, take lead and if this looks like it's going to blow up in our faces, shut it down."

"Yes, sir," Dorsey agreed, and Xander could feel Dorsey's emotions start to settle. He was definitely uneasy. Xander started breathing faster, struggling to break away from Dorsey's thoughts. He felt something in his gut stretch like a rubber band, and Xander almost stopped. He feared having that rubber band snap and give him a mental lashing. However, he didn't want to live in Dorsey's brain forever. He kept pulling, his breaths coming in pained little gasps as his own view of the cell overlaid the vision. And then he was back in his own head.

The world spun a little, and Xander pressed his shoulder into the cold concrete so he didn't fall off the bunk.

"Hey, I'm kinda hungry. Is there any chance of some food?" Xander asked the guard.

Unsurprisingly, the man didn't even twitch.

Xander sighed. Squirming around to try and get more comfortable, Xander watched the various ghosts wander through the room. Willow had fallen headfirst into the weird, which shouldn't be surprising given that she was pretty much weird central in his world too. Still, he didn’t know how to forgive her for putting him on the wrong side of the bars. Worse, he didn’t know what was going on with Dorsey, but he was starting to develop one or two very not good theories.


	24. A whole new world

Xander tilted his head to the side to watch Dorsey walk in. He opened his mouth to ask where Spike was, and then closed it again. Maybe he shouldn’t go letting the military people know that he was big with the eavesdropping. So instead he asked, “Do you plan on ever feeding me? Maybe starving me to death is giving you a few chuckles.”

Xander watched as Dorsey flinched. “I suppose that depends on what you eat. We’re out of virgins.” Dorsey drew himself up and crossed his arms. He was a scary looking man when he put his mind to it, and Xander could feel him strengthen his resolve. He wanted to keep a professional distance from Xander.

“I was kinda hoping for burgers and fries,” Xander said, and he felt a big chunk of Dorsey’s resolve crumble. He wanted to see Xander as a monster, but he couldn’t quite do it. “But maybe lots and lots of burgers and fries because I’m really, really hungry,” Xander added.

Dorsey looked at the guard. “Head down to the mess and grab a half dozen burgers and as many fries as you can get the cook to let you have.”

“Yes, sir.” With that, he vanished out the door, taking his very dirty fantasies with him. Apparently he had more than one that featured the gray-haired leader, whose name was O’Neill, and some blond archeologist. Some very male blond archeologist. The guy had some dirty, wrong thoughts.

“Are you going to unchain me so I can eat them?” Xander asked, raising his arms away from his back.

Dorsey took a step closer. “Truthfully, I’d like to, but I think you know that’s not going to happen. I have one of the best trained units in the entire military, and you threw my guys around like puppies.”

“That doesn’t say much for military training in this universe,” Xander answered.

Dorsey let his head fall forward for a second, and Xander could taste the distress. The guy wanted to help him. Hell, he was starting to feel like a bully for not helping. Xander glimpsed a hint of the past, a skinny black kid alone in an almost all-white school in Colorado. His single father had always pushed Dorsey to win by being better than everyone else, which hadn’t been great on the making friends front. Dorsey really hated bullies.

“I never wanted to hurt anyone,” Xander said softly. “Spike is huge about the whole with great power comes great responsibility, not that he’ll admit to quoting Spiderman. Those guys attacked us.”

“And you didn’t stop after they went down.”

“Hey. Wait. Spike broke that one guy’s neck,” Xander said, “but you said that you arrested them.” For a half-second, Xander didn’t understand, but then the words drifted into his mind. “You have a sarcophagus. Hey, that’s totally cheating. And it means we didn’t hurt anyone. Much. Permanently.”

“Yes, you did. Corporal Benjamin has already maxed out the allowed time in a twelve month period, which is why he’s on rotation here on earth, and the sarcophagus can’t cure Cooper, who you seemed to drain of energy. Both are still in the infirmary, and I have a dozen more men nursing bumps, scrapes, and wounded egos.”

“Oh. That.” Xander cringed. “Sorry. I get a little…”

“Homicidal?” Dorsey offered. Xander could feel Dorsey’s mental defenses begin to rebuild.

“Panicky,” Xander corrected him, and big cracks appeared in those newly rebuilt defenses. Dorsey hadn’t expected that. “I mean, I only got whammied a couple of weeks ago, and my first stop was to run straight to Giles for help, and that worked out about as well as you’d think. Spike had to rescue me.” Xander sighed. “In my universe, Giles is pretty much the closest thing Willow and I have to a parental unit. Her parents are so busy trying to make her be perfect Willow that they pretty much don’t see the real her, and my parents love vodka way more than me. As a kid, I would call home to let them know I’d be late from school because we were researching another end of the world, and I’d have to give them my name because they were too plastered to recognize my voice.”

Xander rested his cheek against his knee. “I didn’t even think about the possibility that Giles would go all Rambo on me. And even if he is kind of a wanker in this world, he’s still a really awesome hunter, and he’s the smartest man you’ll ever meet. He saved the world with one hand tied behind his back. And I really don’t want to have anything to do with him because I’ve had enough parental rejection already in my life, but I don’t think you should shut him out just because he was a giant idiot this time.”

Dorsey took a step backwards, and Xander thought he was going to leave. He couldn’t really come up with the energy to care, either. Instead Dorsey reached out into the hallway and grabbed a folding chair before bringing it in and sitting it in front of the bars of Xander’s cell.

“How did you get turned?”

Xander smiled, even if it wasn’t funny. “Me and women, not a good mix. Actually, Spike and women and Angel and women and just about everyone I know and women. Either there are a lot of demon women out there making childer or men are just pretty stupid and vulnerable the second someone waves boobs at us.”

Dorsey smiled. “I think it’s probably both. Demons? So, are you a demon rather than a monster?”

“The way you say demon? Nope. Not a chance. Who is stupid enough to sell his soul? Seriously? How far back on the short bus of life do you have to be to make that choice, and I’m including Dean Winchester here. I mean, I love Dean in the books, but saving his brother from heaven by selling himself out to hell? Not the smartest move in all creation. Loyal, but not smart. Spike would have kicked his ass up between his ears.” Xander snorted, and he noticed that Dorsey was trying to control a grin again. Xander felt a warm rush of affection for Dorsey, and the man’s head came up. For a second, they stared at each other. It took some time before Dorsey shook his head and the spell broke.

“What do you mean by demon then?”

“Um, powerful but not so much with the human-type creatures that got kicked out of our dimension, although apparently there’s some debate on that. Some people think that the big, all-powerful old ones got bored and moved on, and the kinda big and almost all-powerful old ones were the ones to get banished. Now humans mostly share the dimension with the ‘not so big but dreaming of power’ kinda scary demons and the not scary at all ones.”

“So, demons aren’t a problem for you?”

Xander awkwardly shrugged. “They can be when they start dreaming of badness or trying to bring the real big-bads back. Angelus is less than world-endingly bad, but he tried to use this world swallowing demon to dump the whole planet into hell. Not cool.”

“Where did he get a world swallowing demon?”

“Some museum,” Xander said with another shrug. “Giles figured out what was what.”

“What about the demon who turned you?”

Xander glanced up at the camera. They were totally recording all this, but it wasn’t like they were bad guys. Annoying guys, misguided guys, and really kind of assholish guys, but not bad guys. “She’s one of your monsters. I have no idea how, but she dragged me through some sort of portal and whammied me. Spike was not amused when he figured out I wasn’t exactly human anymore.”

“Why?”

Scratching his chin by dragging it across his knee, Xander thought about that. “Part of it is that he knows our friends won’t like it, but I think a bigger part is that he’s afraid I’m going to get out of control and he’ll have to be the one to bring me back in line, which explains why he is so very much about keeping me in line in the first place.”

“He’s afraid you’re going to kill people.”

Xander nodded. “He’s afraid I’m going to take the first bully I meet and break him into little pieces. I’ve spent a lot of time getting bullied, and Spike was sort of the same back about a hundred and fifty years ago. He seems to think that people who’ve been bullied don’t always handle power real well. And he thinks I’m going to spend the next several decades regretting it if I do lose control the way he did when he was young.”

Dorsey sighed, and Xander could taste the regret. “We want to bring Spike in here, but you’ve scared a lot of people. You really need to prove that you’re not the bad guy here.”

“You’re the ones who started shooting at me.”

“Actually, Mr. Giles’ group did that. You just had the nerve to not get your ass kicked when a dozen very well trained marines tried to kick your ass. Marines don’t actually like that,” Dorsey’s chuckle was almost friendly, and Xander could tell that it was equal parts psyops and a desire to gain information mixed with actual regret that he was causing harm.

Xander sighed. As far as he was concerned, they were bullies too, but saying that now might not be the best idea. Besides, they were bullying people to try and save the world, which wasn’t the same as Cordelia making unfortunately accurate comparisons between Willow and Big Bird. “What do you want me to do?”

“Nothing that I wouldn’t do if I had been compromised and placed in quarantine. Follow orders, Xander. We’re going to order you to the back of the cell, order you to face the wall and then go to your knees. Then we’ll order you to cross your ankles so it’s harder for you to get up. The soldiers will wait to see that you’re staying where you’re told, and then the guard will bring in Spike. One wrong move, and they will open fire with the zats that took you out last time, and Xander, you need to understand the danger with those weapons. With a normal human, one hit stuns, two kills, and three disrupts the molecular bonds holding atoms together so completely that the person vanishes.”

“It… what?” Xander’s voice squeaked.

“Clearly you have a lot more energy holding you together than the average human, but we would like to avoid finding the line between stunning you and making all your atoms fly apart.”

Xander’s guts turned to stone.

“Hey, are you okay?” Dorsey stood up.

“No, not nearly okay. You could have killed me.” Xander felt suddenly cold.

“You were trying to kill me at that point, if you remember.”

“Well then, don’t knock Spike out. He’s really good at getting me to back off, but seriously, you risked pulling all my atoms apart. That’s… uncool,” Xander finally finished. Yes, that was completely the wrong word, but he didn’t have a good word to describe the deep wrongness of pulling people’s atoms apart.

Xander could feel Dorsey’s deep distress, but he hid it well, gazing at Xander silently with his dark eyes.

“Hugely uncool,” Xander added. “World-sized levels of uncool.”

“I’ll have someone bring Spike in,” Dorsey said, and then he retreated. Fast. Xander let his own awareness wander out with Dorsey. The man was upset by how much he liked Xander. Xander focused on sorting through Dorsey’s feelings. He really hated bullies. He hated aliens that bullied planets, and he hated demons that bullied people who felt helpless enough to think their soul was a small price to pay for a little power. Okay, Xander was fully behind that belief, not that he’d met any bullying aliens.

He was also afraid for his people, and he couldn’t shake the feeling that Xander was dangerous. Xander tried to soothe that fear. No, he couldn’t convince anyone that he was a safe, fluffy bunny, but he could honestly say that he didn’t mean to hurt people who didn’t really, really deserve to be hurt. Xander focused on that, and he felt Dorsey’s beliefs start to shift. He started thinking of Xander like one of the raw recruits who were more likely to fall on their mates than help them over the wall in the obstacle course.

Xander could handle that. He was a little graceless, so having Dorsey think so wasn’t such a big deal. However, he carefully guarded his own guilt and certain knowledge that he was going to hell. Screwing with someone’s head was so very much of the not good. However, they needed an ally in here, and Dorsey had gotten volunteered. As another less than voluntary volunteer, Xander felt bad, but life sucked like a really sucky thing.

“General,” Dorsey said, stopping short in the hall. The gray haired man leaned against a wall, and Xander felt a flash of panic, and then a quick echo of confusion as Dorsey tried to figure out why the general would cause such alarm.

He sucked at this. He really did. Taking deep breaths, Xander tried to calm himself and Dorsey’s emotions settled down into a general sense of wrong at having imprisoned people he’d promised to meet under a truce.

“So, the kid doesn’t look much like any monster we’ve seen,” the general observed casually, but Dorsey wasn’t fooled. O’Neill… General O’Neill never did casual. He only feigned it before blowing someone up. But he didn’t blow up many people anymore. Xander pushed into that memory until he found the memory of a vetala targeting Daniel. The general had hunted four of the monsters to their lair—two adults and two young learning to kill. Daniel had come out with little more than feeding scars, but the general had hit a wall hard enough to knock out a few teeth and permanently damage one of his aging knees.

“No, sir,” Dorsey agreed.

“He’s right about women. Danny always falls for the ones who look helpless.”

“Harris doesn’t look helpless, sir,” Dorsey pointed out.

“Just a little young. Was the doc able to figure out if he is as young as he seems?”

“He has the same DNA as the Alexander Harris of this universe, so he probably is twenty-five.”

“Unless he’s some sort of shifter who used that DNA to build a body or the result of one the Asgards’ damn experiments.”

“True,” Dorsey agreed, and Xander felt the frustration of being caught in the battle between the Asgard and the Goa’uld. Worse, if either side won, Earth would be in serious trouble. The Asgard considered humans gene carriers for their own species and thought of humans as a lesser race who owed them allegiance and obedience after centuries of protection and guidance. The Goa’uld considered them hosts. Xander shivered in horror. That was so not good. Add in demons, and these people had a war on three fronts.

“You’ve looked him in the eye, do you still hold that your first assessment was true?”

Dorsey took a deep breath and mentally reviewed the report he’d first turned in. From the first meeting, Dorsey had known there was something wrong, but he’d assessed Xander and Spike as more likely to be allies than enemies.

“Yes, sir. Harris is honest about his own faults, and he sounds more like some new recruit who doesn’t know how to use his weapons than a seasoned fighter.”

O’Neill nodded. “It would explain why he didn’t finish taking the rest of you out and escaping. However, that doesn’t mean he won’t change his mind and slaughter all of us. Keep Hathor in mind, Major.”

“Yes, sir.”

O’Neill started to turn.

“One more woman who used her wiles to try and turn the rest of us into monsters,” Dorsey observed.

O’Neill laughed. “It’s a good thing we have women on base or we’d all be screwed, Major. Personally oversee the transfer of the other one.”

“Spike, sir. Yes, sir.” Dorsey agreed. Xander had to stifle a flash of joy at the idea of seeing Spike. Actually, he was just thrilled to have evidence that Spike was alive. Maybe he and Spike hadn’t always been buds, but Spike had come for him and put up with a lot more crap than most friends would have. Robin would have shoved a suitcase at Xander and told him to hit the road two days after the rescue.

Right. He’d get Spike and then… then he really hoped that Spike had a plan. And he really hoped that Spike wasn’t too cranky about the fact that Xander had either made a minion or a childe.


	25. And here comes another bad guy

“You hungry?” Xander asked Spike.

“Could use a little snack,” Spike agreed. After almost three weeks, they’d reached a strange sort of routine. The guard outside the cell turned on the television. Someone brought Xander a huge tray of food. Xander ate everything, with Spike stealing some of the good bits. Then after a while, Spike would sit close, and Xander would tilt his head and let Spike feed.

Spike’s teeth had just slipped into him, and Xander was squirming with entirely inappropriate feelings of lust, when every alarm in the building seemed to go off at once.

“Bloody hell, give a bloke some warning,” Spike complained. The guard didn’t react. Xander had even mooned the guy at one point, but that just led to truly disturbing fantasies of Xander and Spike and some random soldier dude, and why did everyone in the universe assume that Xander would be the butt boy?

When the alarm kept going and going, Xander could feel the anxiety levels rise. Ghost thoughts of invasion and false gods and little gray guys on power trips all drifted through the room. Spike tightened an arm around Xander and whispered in his ear. “What’s got their panties in a twist?”

“Invasion,” Xander answered. He reached out for Dorsey, but a wall of emotion slapped him back. “Oh, this is not a drill,” Xander said as images of mechanical bug-like things filled his head. “Okay, this is worse than seeing your thoughts, Spike. Bugs. Metal bugs with long legs and some seriously weird weapons.”

The guard whirled around and gave Xander a very unhappy look, but then his radio came on, and an unfamiliar voice started ordering the military guys to hold certain areas. With an almost apologetic look, he answered his radio and then headed out the main door, locking it behind him. The lock gave a heavy thunk as it closed, not that it mattered because Spike and Xander were still behind bars.

Spike waited a half second before leaping to his feet and rubbing his hands gleefully. “About soddin’ time. These wankers are too fucking fond of their security. Right then, break the bars while they’re distracted.” Spike looked over at Xander as if he’d just said something perfectly reasonable—which he hadn’t.

“Break the… what? Spike, have you found a stash of the really good booze somewhere that you’re not sharing?”

“For the love of…” Spike pressed his lips together tightly for a second, and then took a deep breath. “Listen, ya wanker,” he started, “you’re an alph, and that means power and a lot of it. I can taste it every time I feed. I’ve avoided taking too much of that power so that when we got a chance, you’d have the strength to open the soddin’ cell door.” Spike’s voice had started to rise, but now he stopped and made a really strange face, one that made Xander a little bit worried because it looked a lot like his ‘I’m about to kill someone’ face. “Either you get that cell door open or you’re going to be stuck in here with one seriously brassed off vampire,” Spike warned.

“Hey, I think I’m going to try the door,” Xander said weakly as he got up from the cot. Turning his back on Spike, he put his hands on the heavy bars and started pushing. Color him unsurprised that the metal didn’t so much as bend.

“Move,” Spike shouted, danger in his tone of voice as he shoved at Xander’s back. Xander surged forward at the same time he tried to spin around to meet whatever danger made Spike use that tone of voice. Pushing and turning at the same time led to falling and Xander found himself on the floor, one ankle still caught in the mangled bars.

Spike looked down and gave a quick laugh. “You should see your face.”

Xander looked around at the torn metal hinges and the door hanging from the frame. “Okay, that’s a little freaky.”

“You’re an alph, a regular demonic ox. Now get over here and break this door.”

After pulling his book out of the wrecked cell door, Xander stood up and eyed the door. It didn’t look as strong as the cell door. He took a running start and put his shoulder into it. The door broke out of the frame and hit the far side of the hallway. Xander slid to the floor, and the door fell on him.

Spike came and lifted the door off as Xander crawled out from under it. “Ow,” he complained as Spike helped him up. “Is that solid steel?”

“Pretty close,” Spike agreed. “That’s probably why the hinges gave instead of the door breaking. Now let’s find a way up and out,” Spike said, turning to look down each direction of hallway before picking one. Xander was almost sure that Spike was walking in random directions, but since he didn’t have any better suggestions, he followed. They ducked into a side hall when a number of soldiers rushed past, and Spike managed to find a door labeled “Stairs.”

“Whoa, bugs,” Xander warned, grabbing Spike’s hand before he could turn the knob.

“Cockroaches?”

“Techie versions of horror movie superbugs. They're robot sized--like five or six feet tall and seriously well armed.”

Spike sighed. “Great. Well, if it’s bugs or living our lives in a cage, I know which one I’d prefer,” Spike said, and he reached for the knob again, but Xander caught his arm and held it as he slowed his breathing and reached out for Dorsey. He found the man firing a machine gun at one of the giant robot bugs. It was a scout bug. He looked over his shoulder to where Willow knelt next to an open panel where she worked on rewiring something he didn’t understand. “Rosie?” he asked.

“Working on it,” she said, her voice snippy, but then he didn’t have time to worry because more bugs came down the hall and he opened fire, targeting the center mass that floated between long, delicate looking legs that weren’t delicate as much as they were strong enough and sharp enough to plunge through a man’s guts.

“Destroy the control…” Xander held out his hands to show the shape of a small dodgeball like thing. “The control thingy in the center, and we have to go up three levels.”

“We’re going up more levels than that,” Spike said as he looked around. He eyed a pipe on the wall for a second before he reached over and ripped it off the wall, jerking at it to force the metal to break. The wires insides were pulled out, and a few sparks flew, but Spike ignored that, swinging his new weapon a few times before going back to the door.

“Willow and Dorsey—”

“Don’t care.”

“They’re cut off.”

“Bully for them,” Spike said as he pulled the door to the stairs open fast and fell back, his weapon up. Xander held his breath, but nothing was in the stairwell. Spike gave him a weary look and then headed up the stairs, leaving Xander to scramble after him.

“I only saw bugs in the stairwells, not this part of the stairwell. There are a lot of stairs around here,” Xander hissed. Spike kept going up and up, but Xander stopped at the door to level 13. Willow was here. Xander could tell. Well, actually he couldn’t tell about Willow as much as he could about Dorsey, but Willow was with Dorsey, so… Xander pushed the door open and stepped out.

Behind him, Spike cursed, but Xander was a little too busy taking care of a scary-ass bug. The round ball-like control floated in the middle of ten or twelve curved legs, each leg looking way too much like a blade for comfort. The creature, machine, cyborg thing came right at Xander. The legs rose from the control center up several feet and then curved down to the ground where they ended in sharp tips instead of feet. At the top where the leg bent, the whole thing was about five feet tall.

Xander took one look at it and froze. A leg came up, poised to strike, and Spike came through the door swinging just as Xander brought his hands up to defend himself. And using hands against giant alien blade legs was not his best plan. Spike’s first swing knocked two legs out from under the spider, but it simply leaned back on the other legs. The control center… that’s what had to get destroyed. Xander leaped up, determined to reach that center and rip it to shreds.

Unfortunately, he hit the ceiling and came crashing back down onto the floor.

“Oh for—” Spike swung at another leg.

“Sorry.” Xander got back up and then threw himself backwards to avoid a leg that was aimed right at his stomach. “Hey!” Xander grabbed the leg above the sharp foot and gave it his hardest pull. The whole thing started tilting toward him, and Xander’s eyes got big as the rest of the legs all started flying at him as the creature trying to catch itself.

Luckily, that left an opening, and Spike leaped in and brought the pipe down on the round center. All the legs seemed to slap inward, and Xander could see the bug trying to curl in on itself and protect the center. “Oh no you don’t.” Xander held the leg he already had in one hand and reached out to grab a second leg. Bracing himself he held the two legs, opening a hole in the creature’s defenses, which gave Spike the chance to beat it to death. And boy did Spike beat it. Gleefully. Brutally. And he kept beating it until every leg lay flat on the ground and little pieces of electronics and metal were scattered across the floor. Finally he brought the end of the pipe down on the cracked housing and used it like a pry bar to split the control center in half.

“Um, Spike?”

“Wot?” Spike snapped.

“You’re scaring me.”

“Not enough if you’re still bloody running off without permission,” Spike said, and Xander got pinned in that yellow eyed glare. “First, she’s not your bloody best friend. Your best friend is in another soddin’ universe. Second, how the bloody fuck do you know where she is?”

“Um…” Xander cleared his throat. “I…”

“Spit it out.” Spike ripped the pipe out of the ruins of the alien tech, and Xander knew Spike well enough to know that he was having fantasies about sticking it through Xander’s foot.

“I accidentally turned Dorsey. I think. Probably. I can tell where he is, and I can hear his thoughts and I’m pretty sure that while I can’t plant ideas in his head, I can push him to do something if he has even a little inkling of an idea on his own.”

Spike’s mouth just about fell open, and his vampire ridges vanished.

“It wasn’t on purpose,” Xander defended himself. “I was draining him, and I didn’t mean to, and then I pushed my energy back into him because I felt his spark dying, and I’m not helping myself here, am I?” Xander asked.

“No.”

“Good to know.”

For long seconds, they stared at each other.

“Well? Where are they?” Spike demanded.

Xander looked in both directions before he pointed to one. “Um, that way.”

“Come on then,” Spike said as he headed that way. From the way he was swinging the pipe, Xander thought he probably wanted to run into more alien bugs. Yep, Spike was unhappy.


	26. Uncomfortable Allies

Spike hesitated in the middle of the corridor. “Dorsey?” he called out. The soldier came out from a half-open door, his machine gun leading the way.

“Spike? Was level sixteen compromised?” Dorsey looked down the hall until he saw Xander. “You two okay?”

“Peachy,” Spike said dryly.

Dorsey ignored the tone of voice. “Get in here before one of those things catches you.” Xander hadn’t even needed to give him a push to get the invite. Xander watched as Spike seemed to think it over for a second before passing Dorsey and heading into the lab where Dorsey had holed up. Willow was still working on the wiring behind one of the walls, but as Xander followed Spike into the room, she stood up.

“Too late. We took one out back there,” Spike said, poking his pipe back toward where they’d come from. Xander noticed that the weapon was badly bent.

“You took out a klainiz bug? With a pipe?” From Dorsey’s tone of voice, Xander got the impression that he didn’t really believe them. He looked over at Willow, but she didn’t look like she was big with the believing, either.

“Hey, I helped,” Xander said.

“Right, pet. You were a huge help when you jumped too high and brained yourself. I’m sure the machine was dying of laughter before I beat it to death.”

“I held the legs back so it couldn’t defend itself,” Xander protested. He stopped as he felt Dorsey’s shock and fear roll though him. Xander looked over, and Dorsey had the gun pointed at him. “And that is not really okay, so maybe you could point the gun at the bad guys,” Xander suggested.

“You held the klainiz’s legs?” Dorsey started calculating pressure in pounds per inch, and Xander suddenly realized why Dorsey was freaked out.

“Um, yeah. It was the least I could do because Spike was sort of right about me hitting the ceiling, which is a little embarrassing, but the whole having superhuman strength thing is new, and I really don’t always handle it well.”

“Which is why you’re supposed to follow my lead, ya nit,” Spike pointed out. “So, who are these blokes, and why are they trying to kill us?”

Willow spoke up. Maybe she was less afraid of them or maybe she hadn’t really thought about what it would take to hold an alien machine-bug thing. Xander couldn’t read her mind, and he really didn’t want to. He was having enough trouble with balancing his reality with Dorsey’s. “The Asgard are kind of buttholes when it comes to trying to get genetic samples for their testing, and they get a little unreasonable when we try to say that ‘no’ they can’t have our DNA. The klainiz are sort of like shock troops because they don’t have people to send on away missions. Well, sort of.” She made a disgusted face.

“This is pretty aggressive, even for Loki and Fenrir,” Dorsey said, his fears easing as the topic changed. The Asgard were a familiar enemy.

“Loki like the guy from the movie with the mask who turns all green?” Xander asked. He and Buffy and Willow had watched that movie all curled up together on Buffy’s couch.

Dorsey gave him an odd look. “What kind of movies do you have in your universe?”

“Weird ones, generally.”

“Loki is an Asgard, one of the main leaders of a technologically advanced race,” Willow explained before she went back to the raw wires she was soldering together in a new pattern. “They used to take humans and experiment on them to try and create a human-Asgard hybrid that would fix some of their health problems, only we stole one of their transport inhibitors. We reverse engineered it so that most of the cities and major military bases are safe from Asgard transports, but Loki is still a little fanatical about gathering genetic samples from anyone he finds interesting.”

“The Asgard have a problem reproducing naturally, so they go in for cloning big time,” Dorsey added. “And cloning has weakened their race.”

“Have they heard of Viagra?”

Dorsey snorted.

Willow ducked her head in a way that meant she was trying to avoid laughing. “I think it’s more about unstable genetic lines and the effects of cloning than… you know.”

“Getting it up?” Xander guessed.

Willow gave him a look that was so classically Willow that it warmed Xander’s heart.

Dorsey interrupted the moment, and Willow went back to work. “We need to let the general know you’re here,” Dorsey said.

“Why?” And that was Spike—ready to assume the worst, and right now he was definitely big with the assuming.

“Because the last time Loki staged an attack against the base, he was after genetic samples.” Dorsey glanced over toward Xander. “And we know that someone on base has been feeding him information, so he might have heard that we have a potentially interesting genetic donor on base.”

Xander held up his hands. “Me? Oh no. There will be no genetic sampling of me. I am really done with having people I don’t like poke me.”

Dorsey ignored him and reached for his radio. He gave some coded phrases, and after some back and forth, a familiar voice came over the radio. “For cryin’ out loud. Does anyone on this base know the meaning of escape proof?” General O’Neill demanded.

“I don’t think so, sir. You included,” Dorsey answered.

Xander thought a general would get cranky about something like that, but O’Neill just asked, “Can you hold position?”

Dorsey checked the corridor. “We’re in as good of a position as any,” Dorsey answered.

“Stay put. We’re working on a solution,” O’Neill said.

Dorsey agreed and traded some more coded messages with the general. For all Xander knew, they were talking about ways to disembowel him, but Dorsey seemed pretty calm, so Xander didn’t panic.

Xander wandered closer to Willow, stopping when he felt Dorsey’s anxiety rise. “So, are you doing something to stop them?” Xander asked, trying to glance over Willow’s shoulder. She had a panel open and she was working to rewire something that looked really complicated. He’d always thought of her as a computer nerd on the keyboard end of things, but she was getting down with a soldering iron.

“Me? Oh heavens no. I’m drawing energy and making a good show of doing something interesting just to give Major Carter some cover. It’s hard for them to pin her down if there are a whole bunch of geeks making with the rewiring. Generally Sam saves us when it comes to the Asgard and General O’Neill or Colonel Mitchell or Major Dorsey save us when it’s the Goa’uld.” She crossed two wires, flinching when they threw up a few sparks, but then she got back to work.

“Who saves you when it’s the demons?” Xander asked.

She gave him a guilty look. “Um, we didn’t actually realize they were world endingly bad. Mostly we thought of them as more a problem for people who made really bad choices and got themselves sent to hell.”

“Nits,” Spike said softly.

“Well, now we know that those idiots and their bad choices can destroy the world. We’ll adapt,” Dorsey said.

“Yep,” Willow agreed cheerfully. “We’re pretty adaptable.”

“Um, Spike,” Xander said. He squirmed.

“Bloody hell, do not say it, Harris.”

“I smell chocolate,” Xander admitted. He hated admitting it, but the scent was starting to drift down the hallway, and Xander could feel the itching need to go and find it. The chocolate was calling him.

“Ow!” Xander looked down and Spike’s fingers were digging into the fleshy part of his arm.

“What does that mean?” Dorsey asked, and wariness had replaced the raw fear of earlier.

“Mostly it means he’s smelled some big bad that he’s thinking of making a meal out of,” Spike said, and that was a little blunt. Dorsey’s fear surged. “But he’s going to sit his arse down and play at being a good little follower.” Spike shoved Xander toward a wall and Xander obediently slid down.

“Those bug things would definitely not be giving me the chocolate craving,” Xander pointed out. “There’s a living, breathing bad guy down here.”

“So, you only hunt bad guys?” And again, Dorsey wasn’t even pretending to believe them.

“I don’t know what sets him off,” Spike said. “It could be that he’s smelling things that have more power than humans. It could be that he’d been a white hat long enough that the new powers can’t shake him free of old habits. I don’t much care as long as that nose of his keeps him away from humans.”

“Oh.” Dorsey stepped closer to Willow.

“Spike…” Xander let his voice trail off, but he could feel himself shifting as the smell of chocolate nearly overwhelmed him. “Oh I am hungry, and I am not talking about cheeseburger sort of hungry or even cow draining of life force hungry.”

Spike pressed his fingers into Xander’s shoulder so tight that it really hurt. Xander hunched up his shoulders and started breathing fast. Hunger. He was hungry. No, he was starving.

Dorsey moved to the door and used a small mirror on a metal rod to check the corridor. “We’re clear.”

“I’m trusting the boy’s senses on this. We’ve got something heading our way,” Spike said.

Dorsey gave him an odd look, but he reached for his radio. “Un-Als report live enemy moving into section C, level 13. No confirmation,” Dorsey reported.

“Roger. Hold position,” the voice answered.

“Not really doing good on the holding thing,” Xander confessed. “It’s… it’s not as yummy as the leviathan, but it’s really close.”

Spike cuffed him upside the head. “Stay put.”

“Right. Staying.” Xander closed his eyes and pulled his knees up so he could rest his forehead against them.

“Is he okay?” Willow asked.

“No,” Xander answered for himself.

“Oh.” She didn’t have much to say after that. The room fell so silent that Xander focused on the sound of Willow working on the electrical panel and his own heartbeat. It kept slowing, and Xander would focus until it sped back up, but then he seemed to speed it up too much and he could feel his whole body get jittery before the heart started to slow again. Xander had no idea that being a demon was so frickin’ hard.

Xander felt Dorsey’s alarm before he said anything. “Two niz bugs incoming,” he called, and then he opened fire. The sound echoed through the room and through Xander’s head, and he jumped to his feet.

Willow had given up her wiring work and pulled a shorter version of a machine gun. Willow was holding an automatic weapon. Yep, Xander’s brain needed a restart. She hurried to Dorsey’s side, but he yelled for her to stay back.

His gun gave a few more barks and then fell silent. Dorsey cursed and unclipped it from the strap, handing it to Willow before he took her machine gun.

However, Xander couldn’t wait anymore. A long machine leg appeared, and Xander leaped forward.

“You fucking nob!”

“Clear the firing line!”

“Xander!”

Xander ignored all of them as he grabbed the leg and used all his strength to force the bug toward the far end of the hall. It resisted for long seconds, and Xander could feel people moving behind him. But then suddenly all the bug’s legs seemed to lose traction at once, and the whole tangled mess of legs flew at him. Xander threw the bug as hard as he could and then dropped to the floor to avoid getting cut to pieces as the thing went flying over him.

Fingers reached for Xander, clinging to his arm, but Xander threw himself forward. The bugs weren’t smelling of chocolate, but something was. Behind him, more machine gun bursts echoed, but Xander raced toward the place where two corridors crossed. There. He could smell it there.

Xander skidded to a stop in front of a creature wearing black armor. It had an oversized head and thin limbs, but it must have been at least six and a half feet tall with huge black eyes and a small mouth lined with sharp teeth. It was saying something… something Xander didn’t understand… and Xander started racing toward it. The creature fired some weapon, and Xander felt the heat envelop him. The warmth made him lethargic, but laziness has never stopped Xander from going after chocolate.

The creature turned to run, and Xander crashed into it from the back. He could feel the energy soaking into him. Xander pulled at that wonderful powerful, forced the flow of energy to run faster until the fire of life under his hands dimmed more and more. Long fingers ineffectually clawed at him, and Xander let his eyes fall closed in pleasure.

As least until something hit his head hard enough to make his skull ring like a bell. Xander hit the wall and looked up at Spike. “What did you do that for?” he asked as he rubbed his sore head. Spike lowered his pipe and growled.

Okay, maybe Xander knew why he’d done that.

“Oh dear.” Xander turned to find Willow standing at the crossroads with her machine gun. Dorsey stood behind her, watching the other three directions. “That’s a grey hybrid.”

“I thought you said these guys had health problems,” Spike said.

“Um, the actual Asgard do. The hybrids are part Asgard and part pretty much any other species they can cross it with, and they only last for a few weeks or months. Mostly they’re biological versions of the niz bugs—shock troops of destruction.”

Dorsey was already calling the position in on the radio. “Is it dead?” he asked.

“Close to,” Spike said with another nasty glare in Xander’s direction. “You planning on finish it off?”

“Um, no?” Xander guessed. The smell had almost totally faded, and Xander could resist a little hint of chocolate just fine.

“If they sent a hybrid…” Willow let her voice trail off, but she looked at Dorsey and he seemed to follow her just fine. Xander focused and slipped easily into Dorsey’s mind, sorting through for the information he needed.

Xander turned to Spike. “The hybrids are used when the Asgard really want something. They can think and adapt in the field, and the niz bugs are preprogrammed. So if they sent a hybrid or multiple hybrids through, that means they’re hugely with the wanting of something, which is most likely me. Spike, I really don’t want some alien species with delusions of being justified to be cloning a bunch of mini-me.”

“Not going to happen, luv,” Spike said. He held his hand out to Xander and helped him to his feet. “It’s time for us to leave.”

“Wait.” Dorsey stepped forward, his weapon aimed at them, and Xander could feel the conflict there. Dorsey wanted to protect them and hated that being in the base had put Xander at risk, but he had a duty to perform. But he felt guilty about the fact that he felt like the bad guy and he knew that his inability to control the situation in the park had led to Xander’s attack, but he didn’t want to think a creature with all Xander’s powers and all Xander’s bumbling was running around loose in the world. Xander could feel that balance tip precariously, and Xander gave it a little nudge. Dorsey let his weapon sink down.

“Major?” Willow asked softly.

He looked over at her. “It’s not right,” he said, “holding them… putting them in a position to get sampled… it isn’t right.”

“What are you doing to do?”

“Nothing,” Dorsey said. He straightened up. “Rosie, head back to the lab and lock yourself in, and do not under any circumstances keep fiddling with those wires.”

Her mouth fell open. “You’re helping them out.”

Dorsey took a step toward her. “You don’t know anything, Rosenberg. You can’t know anything, clear?”

“Oh no. That is the opposite of clear,” Willow said. “I’m helping too.”

“No, you aren’t.” Dorsey felt a flash of panic as Willow’s resolve face set in. Yep, he knew that face just as well as Xander, although he had a whole different set of experiences. Willow setting in her heels and refusing to abandon a village, Willow holding onto intel even when a goa’uld tortured her. Yep, Willow in every universe had a streak of stubborn about three miles wide.

“Try and stop me,” she said with a sort of gleeful abandon that was a little scary. “The service conduits are the best way out if you have explosives strong enough to take a blast door. So, do you think you could take out a blast door?” she asked Xander as sweetly as if she’d been suggesting pizza toppings.

Xander looked to Spike.

“He’ll do just fine. So, let’s get a move on, then.”

“But…” Dorsey found himself left behind as Willow trotted off down the hall with Spike a step behind. “Crap.”

“Um…” Xander looked at the guy, not sure what to say. “Go on. I have the rear,” Dorsey said, gesturing toward the others. Xander took off running.


	27. Spawn and run

Xander stopped when he felt the first tendrils of fresh air. “Um, Spike, is it night or…”

“It’s fine, now move your arse,” Spike growled.

“Right. Moving.” Xander finished climbing to the top and reached for the hatch. This one wasn’t anything compared to the one lower down, and he put his shoulder to it and braced his feet as far apart as he could so he wouldn’t snap another ladder rung. He gave a hard shove and the metal groaned.

“Put your back in it,” Spike complained.

“I am,” Xander said. He had to swallow down his complaint about being hungry. Clearly one Asgard hybrid wasn’t enough to fuel a whole spree of superpowered escape. The metal finally snapped and the hatch popped open. Xander figured about a million alarms had just gone off, but it was going to be hard to distinguish them from the million alarms that were already going off. Xander climbed out of the hole in the ground and out into the cool night air. Through the trees he could see a guard station, but there didn’t seem to be any guards in it. Xander supposed they were busy with the bug things.

Spike followed him out into the night and he crossed his arms and gave Xander another unhappy look. At this rate, Spike was going to break his glare with overuse.

“What?” Xander asked as Willow climbed out into the night air.

“Shhhh,” she hushed him.

Xander repeated himself, more quietly. “What?” he asked Spike.

“Go on, then. Tell ‘em,” Spike ordered as Dorsey climbed out of the hatch.

Xander’s mouth turned into a desert, and he lost all ability to form words. Dorsey looked at him, and Xander could feel the rising anxiety, but Xander really didn’t want to confess. Worse, he didn’t want Dorsey to have to deal with all the demony stuff because good guys weren’t exactly great at turning demon. It messed with your head.

“Xander?” Willow asked. She took a step forward, but Dorsey caught her arm and held her back.

Clearing his throat, Xander focused on Dorsey. The man seemed to be developing more than a little concern that this was about him. “I have something to tell you, and I’m afraid you’re going to want to shoot me.”

“Oh?” Dorsey shifted his gun around so he could rest his arm on it. “Why would I want to kill you?” He sounded calm, but Xander could feel the emotions rolling under the surface.

“You remember when General O’Neill said that maybe Willow wasn’t on the side of good in my universe?”

“I’m not good? Seriously? I turned evil?” Willow looked ready to hyperventilate.

“Hey, whoa. Only for a really little, tiny, itsy, bitsy period there,” Xander reassured her.

“Bloody hell, move on to the main event, mate,” Spike suggested. Xander waved him off. He’d had three weeks to practice how he was going to say all this, and he needed to do this his way.

“More interesting is how you knew the general said that,” Dorsey pointed out.

“Oh for the love of... Just tell ‘em,” Spike snapped.

“Right. Telling. I’m getting there.” Xander cringed. He really didn’t want to get there, but Dorsey deserved the truth. “Okay, at one point, the love of Willow’s life was murdered right in front of her.” Xander skipped the lesbian bit because this Willow was not really supportive on that front. “And she kinda went off her rocker in an, ‘I’m in so much pain it would be better if I was dead and maybe I should save the rest of the world by taking them out with me’ kind of way.”

“What?” Willow’s eyes got big. Bigger.

Dorsey slipped his free arm around Willow’s shoulders. “I think he’s saying you tried to end the world, Rosie.”

“Yep,” Spike agreed. “Came right close to doing it to. Woulda worked if the boy wasn’t all sorts of stupid.”

“Hey. Noble. I was noble and self-sacrificing,” Xander defended himself.

Spike snorted.

“It worked,” Xander hissed.

“Maybe you two could let us in on your little secret here and then take off before the general shows up and we’ll all in the more shit than we know how to handle,” Dorsey suggested.

“I told Willow that if she wanted to kill everyone that I had earned the right to be first, and I stood between her and the portal that would open up and destroy the world,” Xander blurted out. “She kinda tried to kill me, and there was lightning and magic and pain and all sorts of badness before she decided she couldn’t do it, and if she couldn’t kill me then she couldn’t kill the world.”

“Is she dead now?” Dorsey asked, his voice flat. He pulled his Willow closer.

“What? No!” Horror washed through Xander.

“She couldn’t be angry anymore, so she moved on to grieving,” Spike said.

“Which would be great except for the part where I had all this magic dumped into me, and apparently because I was a non-magical sort, it was like pouring water into a bucket instead of a sink. No drain,” Xander explained.

“I turned you into a monster?” Willow’s voice went up at least two whole octaves.

“No!” Xander rubbed a hand over his face. “I suck at stories.”

“You do, luv,” Spike agreed. “The boy had the magic, so when a baddie from your universe went and got herself neutered and wanted to make a new monster, she reached through and plucked Xander out of our universe. Because he had the power in him, she only had to make a few tweaks and the power did the changing for her. But I don’t think she can control the energy because Xander’s powers have been less than stable, and I’m guessing that she hadn’t meant for him to start snacking on other non-humans.”

“They smell like chocolate,” Xander defended himself. “And before anyone asks, no humans don’t. Usually. There was this truck driver who was a serial killer, and it wasn’t chocolate, but it was kinda not bad, and most humans smell really bad, like I’m not eating that if it’s the last thing in the house bad.” Xander sighed. Stress was making him sound about fifteen, and he was dangerously close to babbling. “Which is still not the really horrible thing that I need to tell you about,” he said softly. “And in my defense, I didn’t know I was doing it, I didn’t mean to do it, and I’m not one hundred percent sure that I did do the thing I’m ninty-nine percent sure I did.”

“Bloody hell, just pull the plaster off, mate,” Spike said wearily. “When the boy was feeding on you, he took too much without meaning to. When he tried to put you energy back, he didn’t stop to think that maybe draining ya and then pushing his own energy back into you was the best way to make a childe. There’s a reason I keep him on a leash, and it’s not because he’s kinky. He doesn’t stop and think things through.”

Dorsey had gone almost gray. “I’m a monster?” he asked softly. He tried to pull away from Willow, but she reached out and caught his arm, holding on even as she looked at Xander with huge, wounded eyes. Soon enough, though, she started to narrow her glare until she had that really dangerous look that usually meant magical badness in his world.

“You’re not human,” Spike said. “I can smell the difference, and you don’t have the juice Xander does, but in that fight back there, your reflexes weren’t human. It could be that, like the boy, you have to grow into the powers, but one way or another, you’ve been turned.”

“You did this to him.” Willow glared knives at Xander.

“Not on purpose,” Xander said, holding his hands up. “It was purely an accident, because trust me, I don’t know what I’m going right now. But really, major, you should probably come with us because General O’Neill is not going to be amused, and trust me, it’s a little hard to hide it forever.”

Dorsey blinked at them like he couldn’t get his brain around reality. In fairness, Xander had done a whole lot of flailing when he first found out, so Dorsey was probably entitled to a little freaking out.

“Right then, let’s go,” Spike said. He jerked his head toward the woods.

That seemed to bring Dorsey out of it. “No,” he said firmly. He looked down at Willow and then over to Spike and Xander. “I’m an Air Force officer, and I will not desert my post.”

“You’re a bloody monster. Do you know what that lot will do to you?” Spike demanded as he poked a thumb in the direction of the base.

“Put me in quarantine, study me, question my loyalty, and maybe if I can prove that I am still Major Dorsey, they’ll put me on a team again. Teal’c isn’t human, and he’s on our best frontline team. If there’s any chance of me doing some good with this, then I have to take it.” He looked around for a second, his eyes almost wild, and Xander could see the streaks of red start to appear in his hair.

“Okay, red hair is generally not a good sign.”

Willow put a hand on her hip and gave him a vicious glare, but Xander gestured toward Dorsey. “Red hair and red eyes generally mean really, really freakily upset, and the fact that you weren’t that upset with the Asgard invading is kind of sad.”

“I’m fine,” Dorsey said, and his hair stopped turning, although he did keep that streak of red.

“Right, cause you look it,” Spike said with more sarcasm than really needed. “You need someone you trust ta really hold the leash mate, someone who can hit you upside the head with a two-by-four when those instincts of yours get out of hand, and it has to be someone who can hit you like that without you harboring any homicidal feelings for them.”

Dorsey’s gaze slipped over to Willow, but immediately the hope there turned to guilt.

“Oh no, mister.” Willow grabbed his arm with both hands. “Don’t you even go getting guilty. You’re not dragging me into this. I am choosing this because if someone is going to hit you over the head for going all monstery, it’s going to be me and no one else.”

He shook his head. “Your career…”

She snorted and poked him in the stomach, and Xander’s stomach twitched in the memory of those hard Willow pokes. She looked all soft and helpless until you scratched the surface and then his Willow was made of stuff strong than steel. Maybe that was true in all universes. “If I put my career ahead of some team mate, then I’m the biggest monster standing on the side of this mountain.” She gave him her resolve face before turning toward Spike and Xander. “What sort of monster are you?”

“Don’t really have a name for him,” Spike said, poking a thumb in Xander’s direction.

“Well, you guys keep calling us un-als.”

Dorsey cleared this throat. “Un. Al. Unidentified Alien Lifeform.”

“Oh.” Xander frowned. “Okay, the telepathy you guys think I have is actually more of being able to see pictures, but every time you think un-al, you think about us, so I thought…” Xander handwaved the rest away. “Hey, maybe we could be Un-evs, you know, un-evil. Which is not the same as good because good is a choice, but we’re not hardwired evil. Uneaves.” Xander tried it on for size. Given this was his first shot at naming a demon, it wasn’t a half bad name.

“I think we should stick with un-al,” Dorsey said slowly.

Xander nodded. “Okay.” He wasn’t really sure what else there was to say. He really wished Dorsey would come with them, but he totally understood why he couldn’t, and not just because he could feel all Dorsey’s emotions.

Willow said softly, “You two really need to head for the hills… other hills far, far away.”

Spike gave her a quick nod and turned to leave, but Xander stood staring at Willow and Dorsey. He could feel the tendrils tying him to Dorsey, and he reached out to shake the man’s hand. Dorsey gave him a small smile. “Sorry about the ambush, kid.”

“Sorry about turning you,” Xander said as they shook hand. Following his instincts, Xander grabbed Willow’s hand and pressed it against Dorsey’s. His own threads to Dorsey snagged against her flesh, tangling between her fingers and Dorsey’s. Xander stared at their three hands all joined and slowly started backing away, careful to not disturb the threads that now stretched between Dorsey and Willow.

Willow blinked at him, looked down at her hand and then looked back at him. She knew he’d done something, but Xander didn’t understand it himself, so those two would have to figure it out for themselves.

“Are you still looking for the Winchesters?” Willow asked.

Xander sighed. “Maybe. We don’t have anything better to do, and I’m guessing they’d handle a visit from the government even less well than they’d appreciate a visit from the friendly neighborhood monsters. But someone has to give them your number.”

“Look north of Lafayette, Louisiana. I don’t know if the lead is any good, but I found credit card activity that I’m about twenty percent sure is related to Dean Winchester in a little town on highway 49 called Carencro. I can’t give you better than that.”

“Thanks, Willow.”

He turned to leave, but suddenly she pulled him around and caught him up in a giant Willow hug. “Don’t be a giant booger and get yourself killed,” she said, her voice strained.

Xander hugged her back. Closing his eyes, he pretended for a moment that this was his Willow holding him and he could go home. Soon enough, her grip loosened, and Xander took a step back. Dorsey watched silently, but Xander could feel his concern for Willow. Funny. He was the same sort of monster Xander was, and he still worried about Willow being too close to Xander.

“When you feel demony hungry, practice on cows. Spike would take me out and make me practice taking only a little, and when I couldn’t stop, he’d smack me upside the head, which is kinda good for teaching self-control. But most of the time, human food works. If you stop having to… um… poop, don’t worry though.”

“And the ghosts. If you start seeing ghosts, don’t panic. It’s how we mind read, only it’s not really mind reading as much as seeing what people are shoving out into the universe, and sometimes objects will have the thoughts of the last person who touched them sort of clinging, especially if there’s a lot of emotion associated with the object.”

“And runes. I can totally see demon runes, so if you see weird glowing letters, you might want to check with Willow before you assume that they exist in the real world. And—”

“Xander,” Willow cut him off. She reached out with her left hand, and Xander instinctively reached for her, holding it with his right hand as they stared at each other across the few feet separating them. “If he grows into more powers, we’ll figure it out.”

Taking a deep breath, Xander tried to make himself feel okay about this, but he didn’t. He didn’t want to leave these two—they were home in some strange way. If it weren’t for Spike, he knew he’d never be able to walk away, but Spike was his true home. “Take care of yourself,” Xander said, and then Spike was yelling, and Xander bounded off into the woods, his demon speed carrying between trees fast enough to make some of the leaves shake and fall off the branches.


	28. Breathing Space

Spike pulled their stolen car over to the side of the road after they passed the round blue sign that annoyed “Welcome to Carencro, Louisiana.” Xander stretched, arching his back off the seat.

“You still hungry?” Spike asked.

“Nope,” Xander said. “Well, not for cows.”

When Spike’s eyes started to yellow, Xander held his hands up in surrender. “I was thinking pizza, Spike. Pizza.”

Spike harrumphed.

“Geez. Mr. Grouchy,” Xander said quietly. He wasn’t willing to complain too loud because he really didn’t want Spike to go for the bondage gear. Xander was fond of being able to move all his limbs.

“Any idea where we’re going?” Spike asked.

For a second, Xander could only stare at him. “Me? Why are you asking me?”

“You’re the one with the powers, luv.”

“Me? You’re the vampire.”

“You’re the alph.”

Xander opened his mouth, but after a second, he closed it again without saying anything. That was true. “You’re supposed to call me names and imply I’m worthless,” Xander complained.

Spike snorted.

“You’re doing odd things to my self-esteem here.”

“We can deal with your issues later. Right now, find us some place with a lot of supernatural energy.”

Xander looked around. So far, Carencro was pretty normal with browning grass lit by weak street lamp and shops lining the road. It was hard to tell where Lafayette had left off and where Carencro started, and nothing hit Xander’s weird meter. “I don’t see anything,” Xander said. He thought Spike might complain, but he just started the car and started down E. Gloria Switch Road. Someone really sucked at naming things.

Spike spent half the night driving back and forth as they wandered out into less populated parts of town where the houses looked less houselike and more shacklike and large areas of woods and fields lined the roads.

“This is feeling… Um… creepy?” Xander guessed as they passed an area with more trees than people. The air smelled funny, but Xander was almost sure that had nothing do with any supernatural forces.

Spike pulled off to the side of the road and looked around. “Any particular place?”

Xander looked at the greying sky. “We need to find shelter.”

“Focus, nit. Is there a particular place that feels creepy?”

Since he wasn’t winning this fight, Xander looked around. There was a beat up old building with a neon sign on the front, but it was dark. All Xander could see was the outline of a goofy alligator in a hat. “There,” Xander said. “I feel something weird there.”

“Right then, we come back as soon as the sun goes down,” Spike said as he pulled back onto the road. They’d passed a hotel a while back, and Spike did an illegal u-turn and headed back that way.

“In the history of finding people, this seems a little sketchy,” Xander pointed out.

“You’re the one who wants to find these Winchesters. I don’t much care.”

“Aren’t you a little curious about why Sam isn’t in hell? I mean, at the end of the books, Sam throws himself into hell, taking Lucifer and Michael with him.”

Spike glanced over. “Angel got out of hell, so did Fred. I could name a dozen more.”

“In our world,” Xander pointed out. “In this world, it seems to be a pretty big deal. Dean is the only other one.”

Spike rolled his eyes. “You’re too bloody naïve to be turned loose on the world, Harris. If one person did it, then others have too. Those books tell the story as the Winchesters see it, that doesn’t make them the truth.”

“But… the author is a prophet.”

“And?”

“And he’s a prophet.”

“And Angel listened to every bit of rot the powers tried shoving down his gullet, too. Just because some tosser claims to be fighting for the white hats doesn’t mean you can trust them.”

“But…” Xander stopped. Okay, that was oddly logical, but Xander didn’t like it. “Good guys are supposed to be trustworthy,” Xander complained quietly.

“Right.” Spike laughed. “And you never lied to your mates, maybe telling Buffy to kick Angel’s ass. Sound familiar?”

“I was trying to keep Buffy from getting herself killed,” Xander defended himself hotly. He’d done what he had to, and he was really fed up with having that thrown back at him. Besides, Spike had been a bad guy back then. He had no room complain considering he’d been helping Angelus.

“And you were right, luv. Buffy didn’t have her head on right, but my point is that the good side is just as likely to lie as not. They have their agendas, just the same as the black hats.”

“And you think that the white hats are lying to the Winchesters?”

“I think those two are too soddin’ trusting.”

“Funny, I thought they were the sort that didn’t trust anyone.”

“If that were true, they’d say ‘shove it’ to all the prophesy rot and take care of themselves. Instead, they’re getting pushed from pillar to post, always reacting to some myth or story. They remind me of… well… every slayer I ever stalked before I ran up against Buffy.”

“That would be two, Spike.”

He pulled off into the motel parking lot before turning to give Xander a truly unhappy look. “No, I killed two, pet. I stalked plenty more and decided they weren’t worth the trouble.”

“And Buffy was?”

“She was young, reckless. I thought I could nip in, break her neck and get away.”

“Yeah, that worked out real well.”

Spike pursed his lips before he shrugged.

“Someone should probably say all that to the Winchesters, huh?”

Spike pulled the keys out of the ignition and turned to really look at Xander. “Is there another reason for finding those two?”

Xander shrugged. “I did want to introduce them to Giles and get them help, but I’m not sure I like Giles in this universe.”

“He certainly would go along with their theory that all monsters are evil.”

“But they aren’t,” Xander said softly. “Which is where I get kinda stuck because I don’t know what to say to them, so I don’t really know why we’re finding them.”

“Other than you want to,” Spike finished for him.

“Right. Dumb idea, huh?”

“Harris, you’re a demon. You’re going to be around for the next several hundred years assuming you don’t do something truly stupid. Given that you’re an alph, you might be around a few thousand. When you live that long, you learn the only thing that matters is doing what you want.”

Xander snapped his head up and looked at Spike. Whoa… he’d expected recriminations and discussions of stupidity and blaming, which Xander was 80% sure was the same thing as recrimination.

“The only two ways of being a demon are doing what you want or getting sucked into some clan or other,” Spike said. “Other than that, there are no guidelines for demons, no societies, no laws, no rules. You do what you like, you follow someone else, or you go slowly insane and end up hiding in some cave. I like the telly too much for a cave.”

Xander had trouble finding the right words, and before he could get any words at all out of his mouth, Spike had gotten out and was trotting toward the office. Thousands of years? For some reason, that reality hadn’t actually sunk in until this moment. Xander was going to live thousands of years. Thousands of years where he wasn’t really part of the world. He was a demon, exempt from the whole death and taxes thing.

Staring at the old siding on the motel, Xander thought about how many human generations that would be. If Dawn didn’t have a kid until she was thirty-five, and then Dawn’s kid didn’t have a kid until thirty-five, how many generations would it be in a thousand years, or even a hundred years? Four in hundred. Maybe. Xander’s brain wasn’t up to thinking in math.

Spike came back and pulled the door open. “We have room 112 at the end. Leave the car here and grab the bags.”

Xander did, but his brain was still stuck. If there were four generations in a century, that meant forty in a thousand years… or was it four hundred? Either way, that was a lot of generations. He would watch Dawn grow old and die, and then Dawn’s kid and then Dawn’s kid’s kid, and then Dawn’s kids’ kid’s kid, and his head was really hurting now.

He followed Spike down the walk, watched as he unlocked the hotel room door and threw his bag into the room and waited for Xander to go in first. Xander cringed as he caught sight of the netting hung from the walls and the old fishing signs and puke green bedspreads. Sadly, this still rated one of their better hotel stays in this universe.

“We’re going to watch Dawn die, and Willow and Buffy… they’re all going to die.” Xander blurted the words out before Spike could even close the door. For a second he stood with one hand on the knob as he just stared at Xander.

“Just now figured that out, did you?”

Xander sank down onto a dusty hotel bed. “You’re supposed to tell me that it isn’t true.”

“So, lie?”

“Hell yes,” Xander agreed. “Tell me that I’m making a big deal out of nothing and that I’m stupid and that Dawn is definitely going to outlive me because I’m an idiot. I’m an idiot that keeps catching the attention of really scary women.”

Spike closed the door and came over to sit next to Xander. It was kind of weird the way he went all quiet, and Xander blinked until the visions appeared. William was sitting against the wall, his expression twisted with pain, and a limp looking Drusilla lay across the other bed and an older woman in even older clothes sat next to a ghost fireplace.

Spike reached over and put a hand on Xander’s knee and all the visions scattered. “You don’t get used to it. That’s why most monsters try and steer clear of humans. They’re not exactly long-lived.”

Xander pressed his eyes tightly shut. He didn’t want to hear that. Nope. Not listening.

“The first time I realized Dru wasn’t getting better after that mob attack, I felt like a bloody ponce. She was dying, and I couldn’t do anything about it. It didn’t seem fair because she was a vampire. And then not long after that, I found out my yoda had gone and changed—gotten himself a bright, shiny new soul.” Spike sucked air through his teeth, and Xander cracked his eyes open just enough to look over at him.

“You’re going to see plenty of unwelcome change, you'll see plenty of ‘em die, Harris.”

Xander shook his head. “I can’t. I’m the normal one. I’m supposed to die before all of them.” Xander felt something inside crack a little. “I was supposed to die before Anya. She wasn’t… she wasn’t the one who went out and did stupid things. That was me.”

Xander leaped up and brushed at his eyes. He wasn’t crying, but he was coming close. “Willow could find a way to undo this.”

Putting his hands behind him on the bed, Spike leaned back. “What will happen to all that magic under your skin then?”

“I don’t know. Something. I’ve had it in me for years now, so…”

“So something was bound to happen eventually,” Spike finished for him when Xander’s words trailed off. “Too many creatures will be attracted to that sort of power, particularly if you’re not using it.”

“So I should stay a monster? Newsflash, Spike, I’m not good at being a monster.”

Spike grinned. “Yeah, well I suppose I know something about that. But the first rule is that the world changes. People come and go. Dawn’s going to turn into a white-haired old woman and then you’ll be standing next to her grave. Of course, that’s assuming that we ever get home. We might be here until long after every person we ever knew is gone and buried.”

Xander felt the wall at his back, and he started sliding down it.

Then Spike was there, kneeling down in front of him. “It’s the way of the world. There will be new people to love, children, grandchildren. There’s always the telly, and when all else fails, a good whiskey.”

Xander buried his head in his arms. “This is stupid. Why am I panicking about Dawn dying? She’s not dying.” Xander threw out tendrils, seeking Dawn. He found Dorsey, sitting in a cell with Willow on the other side. They were watching TV and laughing. Xander felt the moment when Dorsey suspected that Xander was there, and he ripped himself away and lifted his head to look at Spike. “I can’t do this.”

Spike got his hands under Xander’s arms and lifted. “Sure you can, same as you do every other impossible thing you manage. The trick is living in the now. Do what you want now. Feel good about now. That’s all you can do, pet.” Spike guided him to the bed, and Xander let Spike arrange him on the ugly bedspread and then climb in behind him. Xander curled up and let Spike pull him close.

“This is stupid,” Xander repeated softly.

“I’ve been waiting for this particular breakdown since ya found out, pet. It’s part of knowing that you’ll outlive your family.” Spike sounded so sad, and when Xander blinked, the old ghost woman was standing next to the ghost fireplace. “The pain passes, luv.”

Xander wanted to cry. If he was normal, he would have cried. But he couldn’t. The truth drained him so much that he lay in Spike’s arms and let Spike croon to him until long after the sun had risen.


	29. In Search of Normal

Xander woke feeling like someone had rubbed sandpaper over his eyes. He’d ended up on his stomach, and Spike was practically using him for a pillow, but Xander didn’t shove him off. It seemed rude, especially after last night.

The sorrow was still there, nagging at the edges of his awareness and waiting for him to pull it into the light, but Xander made himself focus on something else. He started thinking about Sam and Dean, and something clicked. They’d lost everyone. Pretty much any human being that crossed their paths died, and all they had was each other.

And Spike had been with Drusilla for a hundred years while the rest of the world changed and people died. The two facts sort of got tangled up as Xander thought about what it would mean to have someone with you even as the rest of the world slipped away. All his other friends might die, but Spike would still be there for him. They could have a thousand years together, especially if Xander got powerful enough to protect them.

Dorsey would still be around unless he got killed fighting some aliens.

For the first time, Xander understood why vampires made nests. Yeah, some of it was the whole power in numbers thing, but vampires tended to be on the less than reliable or loyal side, so it never made sense to Xander that so many of them made childer, even knowing those childer were probably going to stab them in the back. Now he got it. In two hundred years, everything else might be gone, but hopefully Dorsey would still be there. Xander could search him out, look in his dark eyes and know that one thing had stayed the same.

Of course, Xander had the advantage of having Spike, too. So that made two things that would never change. That was more than most demons got. Maybe. Xander didn’t actually know a lot about demons and their lifespans. He knew they weren’t all immortal, but they all seemed to outlive humans.

Spike shifted, his knee poking Xander in the ass, which wasn’t nearly as weird as the fact that his leg was between Xander’s knees. “Morning,” Xander said. “Or already pretty late in the evening, in this case.” Not a bit of daylight crept in around the edges of the curtains.

Spike grunted, the sound sending air across the back of Xander’s neck. Little Xander might not have to pee first thing after waking up anymore, but Xander was still having some trouble with morning wood.

“You better then?” Spike asked before he rolled away.

“Less with the wailing and acting like a nincompoop,” Xander agreed.

Spike stood and stretched, and Xander watched him. What would they say to each other in a hundred years?

Spike twitched an eyebrow. “Something you want to say then?”

“No?” Xander guessed. “Except thank you for not running away as fast as you could when I got all weird. I don’t know why I felt the need to have a total mental breakdown.”

Spike sat back down on the side of the bed. “Because it was the first moment when you didn’t feel like you were being chased or tied up or bullied.”

“You? Bully? Never,” Xander said with enough sarcasm to make his real feelings known. However, he also grinned.

“Nit.”

“Yep,” Xander agreed. He might have a thousand years of life ahead of him, but he wasn’t going to waste one minute arguing about that.

“I wouldn’t have to bully you so soddin’ much if you weren’t so talented at getting into trouble.”

“Hey, this is not my fault. I was just sleeping in my room when Eve grabbed me.”

“Right, and when you got that huge reservoir of power shoved into you, that wasn’t your fault at all.”

Xander thought back to that day, to standing on the edge of that cliff while Willow slammed him with wave after wave of energy. He remembered feeling like his whole body might explode, and the heat gathering under his skin. “Nope, that was all Willow… well, Willow and Warren. Given that Warren sent her off on her little trip into big bad land, I’m blaming him too.”

“I’m thinking that all the good little happy meals run away from potentially world-ending conflicts, but there you were standing at ground zero, luv.”

“It’s not like I had a choice,” Xander protested.

Spike shook his head. “You had a choice. You just aren’t interested in making sane choices, is all. You’re about to test the theory that vampires can’t age because you’re already giving me gray hairs.”

“How can you tell under all the peroxide?”

“Watch it.” Spike reached over and caught one of the D-rings around Xander’s collar and gave it a tug.

“Right, just go ahead and bully me for no reason,” Xander said in his most long-suffering voice. Spike rolled his eyes.

“We’re late. Shift your arse out of bed because I want to go check out that place you spotted last night.”

“Well I need a shower.”

“I was meaning to tell you that exact thing,” Spike said. Xander threw a pillow at him before grabbing his bag and heading into the bathroom.

Spike shouted at him as he closed the door, “Oi! You’re supposed to bloody submit, not attack me with the bedding.” Xander grinned as he turned on the water.

 

They pulled into the parking lot for the Guidry Cajun Café long after it’d gotten dark, but the neon sign was still lighting up the night. Spike slipped his hand around Xander and rested it on the small of his back.

Either someone had tried to age the outside of the building to make it look more authentic, or the building had been around since Thomas Jefferson had bought Louisiana. They headed inside, and the aged wood and rust theme continued, but Xander noticed that the chairs were fairly new and sturdy, and the kitchen equipment behind the lunch counter was all stainless steel and clean. So most of the age was for the tourists. Then again, maybe the same people who had decorated all the hotel rooms in this universe had gotten ahold of this café.

A pretty woman with long brown hair and an apron stood behind the lunch counter. “Evening, boys,” she offered with a nod.

“Evening,” Spike answered. Xander just smiled at her and followed as Spike chose a seat at the counter. When Spike gave him a little sidelong look, Xander shrugged. He still thought he could feel something supernatural, but he didn’t know what it was.

“What can I get for you two?” the woman asked as she dropped a one-page menu page in front of each of them.

“Food?” Xander guessed as he looked down at the options.

She laughed. “Okay, I can do that. What sort of food are you in the mood for?”

“I’ll have something fried,” Spike said. “The boy here eats like an ox, so whatever you have extra of, you can sell him.”

“Not okra,” Xander protested quickly as he spotted it on the menu. He did not like slime. He didn’t want to step in slime or slay slimy creatures, but most of all, he didn’t eat slime.

Spike rolled his eyes. “Fine, the boy will eat anything except okra. Happy?”

Xander smiled. “Yep.”

The woman laughed before she turned to the stove and started cooking. “That’s a deal.”

“Isn’t Roy around?” an old man in the corner asked.

“He took the evening off. He works too hard, and I don’t pay him enough for the work he does, so I’m not complaining,” she answered before she moved to the fryer. French fries went in one basket, and something else went in the other. Xander strained to see what she was cooking, but the angle was wrong.

“As hard as he works, he must be sweet on you.”

The woman turned around and shook her finger at the man. “Don’t you start. Roy has never treated me disrespectfully.”

“If he’s trying to make an honest woman outta you, he shouldn’t,” the old man said. “He oughtta show you how hard he can work, show you he can take care of you. That’s the way it uster be done.”

“Well it’s not done that way now.” She shook her head. “Ignore that old coot. My regular cook is a drifter who needed a job and he’s grateful enough to work hard. I’m Elizabeth.”

“I’m Xander, and this is my Spike.” Xander flushed brilliant red when he realized what he’d said. “I mean, this is just Spike. Not my… that’s his name. Really, his name is Spike.” Xander stopped. Spike was laughing hard enough that he was holding the edge of the counter, and Elizabeth was definitely trying to hold back laughter. “Crap.” Xander let his head fall down to the counter and he covered it with his arms.

“Sad thing is, that’s his version of eloquent,” Spike offered. Xander raised a middle finger. “You’re twenty-three, and that’s still as smooth as you can get. It’s sad, luv.”

“Twenty-four,” Xander muttered from under his arms.

“Right then, that makes it so much better.”

Xander sat up and smacked Spike with the back of his hand.

“I’m wounded,” Spike said, his smirk still in place.

“Bite me.” And again, Xander’s brain caught up with his mouth two seconds too late. He flushed brilliant red.

“Bloody hell, breathe before ya pass out,” Spike said, and that was the first time Xander realized he’d forgotten to breath. He took a deep breathe, and the ghosts all scattered. Weird. He hadn’t even noticed there were ghosts.

“Now don’t pick on him. I think he’s adorable,” Elizabeth said. Up to this point, Xander had assumed she was a normal human, but if she liked him, that did suggest evil and demonic.

“Adorable, just what every adult male wants to be called,” Xander said weakly.

“That he is. Cute as a button, this one,” Spike said with a nasty smirk on his face.

“I’m going to…” Xander paused. Spike’s eyebrow went up in that way that meant he was going to take the next words out of Xander’s mouth way too seriously. Xander understood. He did. He was way more powerful than Spike, so Spike was going to feel a need to force Xander’s submission any time Xander had so much of a passing thought of rebellion. “I’m going to sit here and eat my food,” Xander finished.

“That’s what I thought,” Spike said. He draped his arm around Xander’s shoulders, but now Elizabeth was looking at them with some alarm.

Spike wouldn’t hurt him, but Elizabeth was looking more than a little alarmed that he might, and Xander did not like getting cast as the long-suffering wife. “His bark is worse than his bite, but I am not starting a war of practical jokes with him, because that is the path of the loser with green hair and black teeth and underwear full of itching powder,” Xander told her.

“Are you calling me immature?” Spike demanded, all mock indignation and horror.

“Yes, yes, and hell yes,” Xander agreed.

Spike laughed. “Seems better than getting old.”

“Says the guy who reads poetry when he thinks no one is looking.”

Spike narrowed his eyes and glared at him, but Xander gave him a bright smile. Elizabeth laughed, and that distracted Spike from his cranky.

“You two put on a nice show. Either you’re brothers or you’re something more.”

“Something more,” Spike answered before Xander could say anything. They were something more, but probably not the something more Elizabeth meant.

The old man gave a loud harrumph that made his opinion on the matter pretty damn clear.

“Cletus, don’t you start.” She gave them a smile. “All sorts are welcome around here. So, we have some fried pickles with our specialty, fried alligator. And for you,” she told Xander, “we have a fried shrimp po boy. That’ll fill you up.”

“I doubt that,” Spike said, but he was too busy giving the old man the hairy eyeball to really tease Xander too much. Cletus decided that he didn’t want to hang around the cranky gay guy, so he gathered up his newspaper and headed out the door with another huff. That left one man in the place. He was a bald guy having a nearly pornographic moment with a piece of pie, his cell phone up to his ear. Xander glanced over, and froze for a half second before quickly turning back toward Elizabeth. Chocolate. Oh, it was a faint smell, but Xander was definitely picking up on chocolate.

Spike and Elizabeth verbally sparred some, but Xander lost most of their conversation, and Spike had to elbow him to get him tuned back in. Elizabeth was giving him another strange look, and Xander had the feeling she was the mom sort, the sort like Joyce who would jump into a situation in a heartbeat if they thought they needed to, even if it meant going up against a vampire with a frying pan.

“Low blood sugar,” Xander explained weakly. “I’m not feeling well.”

Now Spike was giving him a concerned look, turning in his chair and leaning close to get a good look into Xander’s eyes.

“I’ll get the food,” Elizabeth quickly offered. She turned and pulled a bag of French bread off a shelf.

“Harris?” Spike asked in a whisper as he leaned close.

“Is he human?” Xander asked softly, giving his head a quick little jerk back toward the bald guy in the old leather jacket and plaid shirt.

Spike didn’t have to look over at him. “Through and through,” Spike said. “Why?”

“I’m getting some chocolate smell,” Xander confessed. Spike’s eyes started widening. “Only a little, a little, tiny itsy bitsy bit,” Xander blurted out before Spike could drag him out and hogtie him again. Elizabeth turned to look at him, and Xander improvised. “I let my blood sugar get a little out of hand, which always makes Spike overprotective and twitchy.”

She pushed a plate in front of him. It was piled high with fries and a twelve inch sandwich so overly full of shrimp that they were tumbling out. “He should get twitchy. You have to take care of yourself,” Elizabeth said firmly. Yep, definitely the mother-type. She watched him, arms crossed until Xander gathered up the oversized sandwich and took a bite.

“It’s my job to worry about you, luv,” Spike said. It was unfair of Spike to go and get all serious when Xander had his mouth full. “He doesn’t pay attention to his own needs until it’s too late more often than not,” Spike complained to Elizabeth. “Don’t worry, ducks. I have him now, and he’ll eat up and get his blood sugars back where they should be.”

She grabbed the other fryer basket and shook it before tipping the fried food out onto a new plate. She took that plate and slid it in front of Spike. “Just make sure he does. I don’t let men pass out in here, understood,” she pointed a finger at Xander.

“Yes, ma’am,” he agreed, his mouth still full. She smiled at him and then headed for the back. “I’ll get you a couple of cokes.”

Xander waited until she was gone before looking at Spike. He expected threats, the third degree, maybe even a Spike-sized hissy fit. Instead, Spike leaned close. “Got trouble, pet. Should have known you’d land us in the soup with a hunter.”

Xander’s eyes got big. A hunter? The weird looking guy was a hunter? Shit.


	30. Plot Interuptus

“Hurry up then, places to go and all that rot,” Spike said with a gesture toward the sandwich. Xander took another bite and chewed as quickly as he could. It really was a monster sandwich, no pun intended.

Elizabeth came back with the two drinks, and Spike offered her a “ta” and a nod before accepting. “So, how much do I owe you?”

“You’re leaving? Already?”

“Hate to eat and run, but the boy and I have business,” Spike said in a soft voice.

“Northerners, you’re always in such a rush. I suppose that all total that’s going to be sixteen dollars.”

Spike pulled a twenty out and slid it across the counter. “You keep the change. Xander, you about done?”

“Trying,” Xander said as he took another bite and washed it down with Coke. “This is really good,” he said around a mouthful of shrimp.

“You’d think he was raised in the woods by wolves with those manners of his,” Spike despaired. Xander kicked him.

“Abuse, that is,” Spike complained loudly. Xander knew this game. This was Spike’s version of inconspicuous. He made himself as loud and obnoxious as possible so that when people did look at him they couldn’t actually see past the loud and obnoxious.

Xander rolled his eyes, and Elizabeth just laughed as she started to wipe down the counter.

“Just wait until we get back to the hotel, pet. I’ll show you how to treat me right.” Spike slid off his stood and moved closer to Xander, wrapping his arm around Xander’s waist. With his mouth full, Xander couldn’t say much, but he started coughing, which was awkward with a mouth full of po boy.

Spike patted him on the back with one hand, and let his other hand slip down toward Xander’s cock. Talk about mixed messages. Xander was going to choke on his tongue at this point because his cock was definitely taking notice. Too much.

Quickly swallowing, Xander said, “Bad touching in public, Spike!”

Spike buried his nose in Xander’s neck. “Yep,” he agreed.

“Bastard.” Xander hissed the word as he grabbed at Spike’s wrist. He felt the moment when Spike realized his real problem. The stupid vampire went utterly and perfectly still. And Xander got even harder. This had to be a side effect of the whole getting whammied because Xander had never been interested in Spike before. Much. Okay, so he’d noticed how lean and attractive Spike was, but that had been in a purely heterosexual, eyeing-up-the-competition sort of way. Probably.

Xander could feel his face turn brilliant red.

“Problem?” Spike asked. He rested his chin on Xander’s shoulder and pulled him close so that Xander’s back was pressed against his chest.

“An asshole is hugging me,” Xander pointed out unhappily. Spike’s arm tightened a little more, and Xander could almost feel the blood diverting into his cock. This was a level of hell, and Xander was in it.

“Finish your sandwich, luv. We have business to take care of,” Spike said as he moved his hand up until he rested his palm against Xander’s stomach and spread out all his fingers.

Xander glanced over his shoulder, but Spike had on his inscrutable face. “Right. Eating.” Xander finished as fast as he could, and Spike helped by stealing a few shrimp that escaped from the end of the French bread. “Okay. Done,” Xander said right before he gave a huge burp. “Um, sorry. I ate too fast.”

Spike rolled his eyes. So maybe Xander wasn’t winning any etiquette contests, but it was Spike who had told him to hurry. Hurrying plus huge quantities of food equaled champion quality belching. And Xander was definitely focusing on that and not on how his body had just staged a coup.

Spike turned to head out the door, and Xander scrambled to follow, still completely confused about this business they had to do. So when Spike suddenly grabbed the bald dude and sent him flying into the cash register face first, Xander could only stand and stare in shock. Elizabeth whirled around, a cleaning rag in hand, but before either of them could do anything, Spike pulled on the guy’s arm.

When random dude pulled his hand free of his jacket, he had a huge machete in it.

“Get off me, monster,” the guy yelled.

“So you can kill the girl? Not a chance, mate.”

“Spike?” Xander asked weakly. He had definitely missed something. Hugely missed.

“This wanker was on the phone with someone called Benny. I heard him say that Benny had 45 minutes to get here before something bad happened to the nice girl.”

Elizabeth moved to the far end of the bar. “I… what?” She was keeping up about as well as Xander, which meant not very well.

Spike slammed the guy’s arm down on the counter twice before the machete dropped free. Xander darted in and grabbed it, and Elizabeth stared at him with huge blue eyes. She was quickly moving past shock and into scared, and that was not fair. She didn’t deserve to get threatened with a machete in her own restaurant.

“Um, maybe hold this or hide it or… something,” Xander finished as he held it out to her handle first. She grabbed it and clutched it tightly. Yep, she was ready to start swinging if anyone tried hurting her, and Xander backed away.

“Who’s Benny? I loaned him my phone to call a friend,” Elizabeth said. “He said he left his cell phone somewhere.”

“So, you used her phone?” Spike slammed the guy’s face down onto the counter.

“Hey!” the guy protested, but Spike reached into a pocket and confiscated the phone.

“Here ya are, luv,” Spike said as he slid the phone down the counter. She grabbed it and started going through the memory. “So, who are you, and what problem to you have with the woman?”

“Nothing. Let me go.” The guy tried kicking at Spike’s legs. Yeah, that worked great.

“Just a hint,” Xander said, “you’re really not going to be able to get away from Spike, so telling him the truth would be a very good idea right about now.”

Suddenly Spike jerked. The guy squirmed madly, and Spike had to slam him back down onto the counter. Oh yeah, that was bruising. “Ow. You fucking nob. What the hell was that?” Spike pulled a hypodermic needle out of his leg and tossed it onto the counter. Xander looked closer, and something had stained the inside of the need reddish brown.

The guy started laughing. “Ha! You’re in for it now. That’s dead man’s blood. Now who’s afraid?”

Xander didn’t realize how afraid he was until the fear all rushed out of him at once. There were lots of things that could hurt a vampire, more than Xander wanted to think about. However, shoving blood into a vampire wasn’t exactly big on the smart scale. “You stuck him with dead man’s blood? Okay, that’s a whole new level of creepy. Seriously, who does that?” Xander gave a shudder. “If he tries sticking someone else’s blood in me, I’m hurting him. That’s just not right.”

“But… you should be collapsing, you undead creature, you.” The guy struggled harder, and only then did Xander remember the Supernatural books. Their vampires were incapacitated by dead man’s blood. So whoever this was, he’d figured out that Spike was a vampire. The lack of body heat might have something to do with it seeing as how Spike had his fingers curled around the guy’s neck. However, that meant that when the guy was shoved face down on a counter, he was still smart enough to start collecting clues to try and figure out who had captured him. This was not good. This was monumentally not good.

Spike started patting him down and searching his pockets. When he found a billfold, he tossed it at Xander. Xander opened it.

“Martin Creaser,” Xander read off the license. “Do you know him?” he asked Elizabeth.

She shook her head. “No. He’s a customer and he’s been coming around for a few weeks, but I don’t really know him.”

“Know anything about him?” Spike asked.

She held up the phone to show Xander a number he didn’t recognize. “He called Roy.”

“Your cook?” Xander asked. Maybe he was missing something, but that seemed odd.

She nodded. “You say he threatened to hurt me if Roy didn’t come back?” She turned to Martin. “What’s your problem with Roy?”

“He’s a monster!” Martin cried out. He tried kicking Spike again.

“Bloody hell, stay still,” Spike said as he gave the guy a good shake.

“I’ll call the police,” Elizabeth said, and she already had the phone in her hand, so Xander stared at her, the panic growing in his chest as he tried to find words that would stop her. He didn’t want the police involved, not even a little. He and Spike were monsters, and Xander figured he really didn’t want to get the authorities involved, not with the superhuman hearing and the badness that would come from having a big arrest record. Someone would notice him not aging.

“I wouldn’t, missus,” Spike said, “not until Roy comes, anyway.”

“Um, guys,” Xander said as he held up a paper that he’d unfolded. Martin had it tucked into the pocket meant for bills.

Spike was busy trying to hold a madly squirming Martin. “That’s mine. Leave it alone,” he shouted. “You have no right to read that.”

Elizabeth took a step forward, the machete still in her hand. “Is that…?”

“Aftercare instructions from Glenwood Springs Psychiatric Hospital,” Xander said, reading the letterhead.

“Oh, well that explains a few things.” Elizabeth sounded relieved as she turned back to the counter and put the machete on it. “We should really call the authorities and have them pick him up. Clearly whoever let him out needs a refresher course on how to spot dangerous behavior.” Maybe supernatural blindness was a human genetic trait, because she was as quick to believe a good cover story as anyone from Sunnydale ever had. And unfortunately, that meant she was dialing.

“Spike,” Xander said, desperation in his voice.

“Benny’s a monster. He’s a vampire. And this one is some sort of monster too. They’re all around us… monsters.” Martin definitely wasn’t helping his own case with ranting, but Xander didn’t know how to keep Elizabeth from calling the police. And if Benny was a vampire, he didn’t understand how threatening a human would get Martin anywhere.

“Let’s wait ‘til Roy comes back. He might have something to say about all this,” Spike said before she could finish the third number.

Elizabeth frowned at him. “Why?”

Spike shrugged without letting go of Martin’s neck. “Might be that the man has one or two secrets.”

Elizabeth frowned, but she turned off the phone and slipped it in her pocket, so clearly the possibility of getting her cook in trouble was enough for her to want the police out of it. She wanted to protect him, which did suggest he was probably some sort of monster other than vampire… or he was one of those weird vampires who had decided that hunting humans was too dangerous. Xander had read about those sorts in the books. “You know him,” Elizabeth accused Spike. Then she looked at Xander.

Xander held his hands up in surrender. “Not me, at least not personally. But I’m on Spike’s side because if he is who I think he is, then he really will not thank you for getting the police involved.”

Elizabeth grabbed the edge of the counter. “Oh god. He’s a criminal, isn’t he?”

“He’s a monster!” Martin yelled.

“Bloody hell, one more word and I’m going to reconsider my ban on ripping out people’s tongues,” Spike said, yellow bleeding into his eyes. That was definitely his cranky voice, and Martin’s eyes got all big. Weirdly, Xander felt a little sympathy for the guy. Getting manhandled by Spike was never fun, but when you weren’t sure whether or not Spike was going to literally rip out your tongue, it was way less fun. Xander remembered a time when Spike had tried to honestly kill him, and Xander had the microscope-shaped bump on his head for a good week after.

“He really isn’t going to hurt you as long as you stop trying to kill us,” Xander said. “So, if Benny is a vampire, why do you think he’d come back for Elizabeth?”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea to feed into his hallucinations,” Elizabeth protested, but then she didn’t know what was going on.

Martin cackled. “He likes her. He’ll come back for her, and I’ll cut his head off.” Believing in vampires was clearly the least of Martin’s mental health problems.

“If he’s a monster, he won’t walk into your trap,” Spike said. Martin was shaking his head, but Spike kept going. “And if he does come back, then he’s having some pretty human emotions.”

“No,” Martin said firmly. “I don’t care what Dean says, he’s not a good guy. Vampires need to be killed.”

“Dean?” Spike pounced on the word. “Dean Winchester?”

Martin sucked in a breath and then made a big production out of pressing his lips closed.

“Oh for…” Spike growled. “Well, we know that Benny knows Dean Winchester, so I suppose that’s a start,” he said. He pulled Martin upright and shoved him toward one of the booths.

“Who’s Dean Winchester?” Elizabeth asked. “And what does any of this have to do with Roy?”

Spike manhandled Martin into the booth and then slid in next to him. At this rate, Martin was going to die of a heart attack without Spike ever doing anything to him. Xander wasn’t sure if that counted as murder or not, but he really didn’t approve of killing humans who were trying to do the right thing, even if they were idiots.

“Maybe I should sit there,” Xander suggested with a smile.

Spike rolled his eyes. “Not a chance in hell, luv. He’s dangerous, even if he is ‘round the twist. I figure the best thing here is for all of us to sit down and wait for this Roy or Benny or whatever name you want to call him. And no one is going to be doing any killing, got it?” Spike demanded as he pinned Martin with a glare.

Martin didn’t answer, but he kept swallowing so that his Adam’s apple was practically doing pushups.

“Waiting. Waiting is good,” Xander said as he looked at Elizabeth. “Especially if that means that Roy gets a chance to explain this all for himself, right?”

“Waiting,” she echoed, and from the tone, she wasn’t exactly sure that was the best choice.

“It’s that or let Roy walk into a room full of cops,” Xander said, and he could see the way she tensed. She was loyal to Roy, and if that meant putting up with a few homicidal maniacs until he could get back to the café, she was going to do it. She stood at the end of the bar and made a production out of curling her fingers around the handle of the machete.

“Fine, we wait, but only until Roy gets here.”

Spike graced her with a brilliant smile. “No problem, luv. We’ll all sit here quiet, all safe as houses.” Spike patted Martin on the shoulder, and the man flinched back. And a happy time was had by all. Feeling very much like this was a potentially horrible idea, Xander slipped into the seat across from Spike and Martin. Silently, he slid the wallet and paper back to Martin, and the man snatched them up and started folding his paper. He wasn’t crying, but he looked like he just might start. Yeah, Xander was not getting a ‘mentally healthy’ vibe from him.


	31. One very confused vampire

Xander watched through the window as an old truck pulled into the parking lot. Elizabeth glanced out and then an expression of pure relief crossed her face. “It’s Roy.”

“We have to get out of here. He’s a monster,” Martin shouted, fear in his voice.

“He’s no more monster than I am,” Spike said with a sort of malicious glee in his voice. Unsurprisingly, that didn’t calm the guy down any. Martin looked from one of them to another, panic growing as Elizabeth hurried to the door. Whatever else he’d planned, he hadn’t planned to hurt Elizabeth because he didn’t want her near this Benny.

Benny walked in the room. He was a nice looking man, thirties or forties with the gray just starting to show up in his neatly trimmed beard, and Xander didn’t get much chocolate smell from him. He did, however, see an image of Benny with a mouthful of teeth superimposed over the normal guy who stood there in a dark coat. “Well now, isn’t this a proper meeting. Lizzy, are you okay?” Benny moved to stand between her and the rest of them.

“I’m fine, but these two seemed to think that you wouldn’t want the cops called.”

“Is that so?” Benny eyed them before looking at Martin. “You. You come near her again, and you ain’t likely to survive, understand?” While Xander had always thought of a southern accent as sounding friendly, that was not so much the case here. Benny was pissed.

Martin paled, but Spike just sat there like nothing was being said.

“Roy, don’t say that,” Elizabeth grabbed his arm, and Xander could see Benny back down immediately.

“I don’t want him threatening you,” he said apologetically.

“I don’t either. I wanted to call the police and have them pick him up, but these two talked like they knew you and knew you wouldn’t want the police involved.”

Benny eyed them. “Did they now?” He drew himself up and stepped in front of Elizabeth again. “Well then, let’s the four of us take this conversation elsewhere.” He steeled himself, and Xander could see that he was calculating the odds of taking on three people, and he didn’t like them. Despite that, he was still planning on putting himself in a really shitty position just to get the fight away from Elizabeth.

“Roy, what’s going on?” Elizabeth demanded. She stepped out from behind him, hands on her hips.

“Don’t worry, Lizzie. We’re going to take this elsewhere.” Benny kept his eyes on Spike. Xander would have been offended, but Spike did look way more threatening.

“No, you’re going to tell me what these people are talking about. Are you in trouble with the law?”

Benny laughed. It was a quick sound, as if the laugh had slipped out when he wasn’t being careful enough. “Now cher, don’t you worry none.” He started backing away from the door, gesturing toward it with his head as he carefully backed Elizabeth up toward the counter. “After you folks,” he said, his voice full of a stuffy sort of politeness. He was planning on either killing someone or being killed. From the way Martin had lost every bit of color out of his face, he was thinking the same.

“It isn’t nice to leave her in the dark,” Xander blurted out. He had to because Spike wasn’t stepping up and saying anything.

“This ain’t got nothing to do with her.”

Xander watched Elizabeth’s frustrated struggle to not get pushed away. She was shoving at his back, but he kept right on pushing. Xander knew how it felt—being the normal one who was never trusted to be part of the fight. And yeah, his girls were generally good with not totally emasculating him, but still. And was it still called emasculating when you did that to a woman? Clearly it was something frustrating and not-good because Elizabeth was huge with the unhappy.

“Doesn’t she have a right to know?” Xander asked. “I mean, you’re here in the middle of her café, shouldn’t she know about the potential for badness?”

“I got no beef with you. You got no beef with me,” Benny said. “So we can take this outside or you can leave, it makes no difference to me.”

“What badness?” Elizabeth demanded.

“I’d never hurt you, Lizzy,” Benny said, turning to reassure her.

That’s when Martin decided to get back into the conversation. “He won't feed off his own flesh and blood, he’ll just kill others. Innocents. Tell her, Benny. Tell her how you're her long-lost grandpappy. Tell her about all the dead you left behind. Tell her about the monster that you are!”

Benny looked panicked at that revelation, but Elizabeth rolled her eyes. “Would you stop? How did they ever let you out of that asylum if that’s how you talk to people?”

“Maybe you should tell her the truth,” Spike commented.

Benny clenched his fists at his side.

Elizabeth put a hand on his arm. “Roy… Benny… whoever you really are, you know you can trust me.”

“I won’t put you in danger,” Benny said gently.

Xander snorted. He didn’t mean to make it a loud snort, but it kind of came out that way. Benny turned and glared, and Xander could feel the danger swirling in the room. For the first time in his life, he wasn’t scared of the thought of someone trying to kill him. Xander could handle Benny.

“Not telling people the truth is kind of shitty,” Xander said. “Back when I was the normal, clueless one, I didn’t appreciate it much, and it didn’t actually keep me safe. It just put me in danger because I didn’t know how to protect myself.”

“I never put Lizzy in danger,” Benny snarled. He took a step closer, and then tensed up when Elizabeth took the opportunity to follow him.

“So, none of your enemies ever followed you here?” Xander asked. “No hunters ever came looking? Newsflash.” Xander poked his thumb toward Martin.

“She’s not part of that.”

“She’s here,” Xander shouted over Benny when he tried defending himself. “Just like I was there and Jesse and Willow were there, only no one told us and one of us died because of that. One of us died because we didn’t know what went bump in the night, and the people who did know thought that…” Xander waved his hand. “I don’t know what they thought.”

“That it was a fight between good and evil, and any peons who got caught in between weren’t worth bothering about,” Spike offered.

“Great. And sadly, he’s probably right,” Xander said. He rubbed a hand over his face and tried to get control of his rising anger before he said something stupid. If they wanted to find and help Dean, pissing off the guy who knew where Dean was wouldn’t help, and according to Martin, Benny and Dean had been to purgatory together. Xander felt a little twinge of homesickness at the thought of purgatory. Yeah, he still had his own mental health issues to deal with.

“You brought up some good points, so why don’t we all just leave?” Benny offered.

“Right, because there isn’t any danger, not with hunters and vampires wandering around, and more likely to come, and then there’s the fact that innocent people never die. No one would ever take some kid who didn’t know anything and turn him.” For just a second, Xander closed his eyes. “I can’t bring Jesse back, but maybe if we’d known the truth, he would have had a chance.”

“Vampires?” Elizabeth started backing away. Yep, she was definitely putting Xander in the crazy-category now. And normally Xander could show off his stuff. He could change hair color and skin color. He could make his eyes all blue or just give himself normal-looking green eyes. But he was too tired for that, and this wasn’t the conversation he’d intended to have.

“Spike?” Xander asked.

Spike pursed his lips and looked at him for a second before nodding. “Keep in mind that I’m not a danger to you,” Spike told Elizabeth, and then he vamped out. The ridges on his nose and forehead and the yellow eyes were impressive enough, but Spike snarled, showing off two impressive fangs.

Benny, however, looked more concerned than ever. “What are you?” he demanded as he stepped forward.

Spike went back into his human face and shrugged. “A different sort of vampire from you.”

“I’ve never seen…” Benny let his voice trail off and then he turned to look at Elizabeth.

“She deserves the truth,” Xander said. “She was loyal to you to the end. And you need to listen to the whole story,” Xander said to Elizabeth. “Because being non-human does not make a person automatically evil. But having everyone expect you to be evil, and getting treated all the time like you’re evil and you can’t be anything better, and then getting chased away whenever you do try to have a quiet life… that’s enough to make a person evil.”

“Pet, some monsters are created evil,” Spike said softly.

“Not as many as people assume,” Xander said. He hated that when he’d first woken up in Willow’s big secret base, people assumed he was some people-eating creature of evil. Yeah, he could eat people, but he tried to avoid it. Besides, the Donner Party had kind of proved that it didn't take a monster to eat a person.

Elizabeth was too busy staring at all of them to answer. She backed up to the counter and grabbed the edge, although Xander wasn’t sure if disbelief or fear or shock was the main reason, and reading her thoughts seemed a little rude.

“Lizzy,” Benny said softly. “I never wanted you at risk. I just checked in to see that you were okay, to pay my respects. You needed help…” His words failed him.

“You mean… they’re right?” She shook her head.

“He’s a monster. I told you,” Martin shouted and Spike brought up the back of his hand in a viper-fast move. One punch to the nose, and Martin was too busy clutching his own face in pain to really participate in the conversation.

“I died a good long time ago,” Benny confessed.

“Only not died as much as changed,” Xander added.

“Pet,” Spike said, “shut it.”

“Right, shutting it now,” Xander agreed.

“Oh my god.” Elizabeth sank down onto one of the stools, but she wasn’t running away and screaming, which was a plus. “Are you really family?”

Benny paused before nodding.

Elizabeth ran her fingers through her hair and looked around the room wildly. Maybe she was waiting for the cameras and the person who would yell “Candid Camera.”

“I never meant to hurt you.” Benny shifted closer to Elizabeth, and he was still keeping himself between her and everyone else.

“That one… he said you’d killed people.”

Benny took a long time to answer that one, and Martin made a quiet little squeak that made Xander think that Spike had just made another point about being quiet.

“I did,” Benny finally admitted. “I’ve done plenty of wrong in my life, which is why I always avoided coming home.”

“And you came home because…” Elizabeth sat up and looked Benny right in the eye.

“I’m just trying to blend in, find a place where have a quiet life. This one,” Benny poked a thumb in Martin’s direction, “thought I’d started killing again, but I ain’t killed a human in going on fifty or sixty years. That was the work of a youngster trying to crew up a new nest.”

Martin mumbled something, but he kept it quiet enough that neither Benny nor Elizabeth paid him any attention.

“Is he gone now?”

“Me and Dean took care of it,” Benny said, “so as soon as I leave, there’s no one left to bother you.”

“Leave?” Elizabeth sat up. “And go where?”

Benny stared at her, and she started to shake her head. “No, this is your home. You can’t walk away because someone from an insane asylum showed up at the café. I’ve been held up by people who scared me more than him and his machete, and I didn’t back down to them.”

“You don’t want me—”

“You’re family. I like you better than most of my family, and other than my habit of criminally underpaying you for the work you do around here, there’s nothing nefarious going on.”

Xander could see Benny getting frustrated. He stood up, ignoring the furious expression from Spike. Spike could babysit crazy guy—Xander was going to have his say.

“I’ve only been unhuman for a couple of months—” Xander started, but Elizabeth interrupted him.

“What are you?”

Xander opened his mouth and closed it again without answering. He could see Elizabeth’s frustration rise, and he held up his hand. “No, I’m not refusing to tell you. I just don’t actually know. Mostly I just see ghosts, but I’ve got this really neat trick where I can turn my hair green by thinking about it."

“You’re a witch?” Elizabeth sounded unsure about that.

“Okay, I don’t know what I am, but I definitely know I’m not a witch,” Xander said, “but my point is that I was pretty much pure human until a couple of months ago, and that didn’t keep me from doing what was right. Benny, you can leave, but you can’t make it so that Elizabeth doesn’t know the truth. Well, you could, but that sort of mind-wiping mojo is hugely with the bad and likely to backfire.” Xander sighed as he realized he was totally losing his point in all the words.

“I won’t put her in danger,” Benny said, an edge to his voice that made it clear he’d fight Xander if that’s what he needed to do to keep her safe.

“Right, because you can protect her from everything, especially when she doesn’t know anything. How can she tell a werewolf from a vampire? What does she do if someone has put a spell on her? Don’t you think she needs to know these things?”

“No,” Benny said firmly.

“Excuse me?” Elizabeth demanded, and for a second, Xander would have sworn she was channeling Joyce.

“I’ll leave. You won’t be bothered anymore, Lizzy.”

“And do all the people Sam and Dean save know about the supernatural? Do creatures stick to hunting people who know about them?” Xander demanded.

“Boy’s got a point,” Spike offered.

“What do you two want?” Benny demanded. The question caught Xander so off-guard that for a second, he couldn’t remember, and Spike wasn’t much help, he just looked at Xander.

“We wanted to meet Sam and Dean and introduce them to some people who would help so they weren’t trying to hunt alone,” Xander said, “and to make my point, both of them are human. Human is not weak. Well, okay, it’s physically weak, but that doesn’t mean that humans can’t defend themselves.”

“You want to meet them?” Benny was huge with the not believing.

“Let’s go back to this part where you’re leaving and you don’t plan on telling me anything,” Elizabeth said dryly.

“Lizzy,” he said wearily.

“Oh no. Do not give me that tone of voice.”

“Give it up, mate,” Spike suggested as he stood up, pulling Martin with him. “When someone you love gives you that look, you’re a lost cause. It’s just better to lay down and admit to being love’s bitch before the old gal kicks you in the bollocks. Now, why don’t you give the Winchesters a call and ask them to pick up their little friend?”

“Me? You’re taking me?” Martin seemed to lose the rest of his color.

“Bloody hell, wot? You think I’m going to leave you here and let you take another shot at those two? You really are ‘round the twist.”

“He won’t kill you,” Xander promised as he gave Spike a nasty glare. Yes, Martin was annoying and slightly bad guyish, but that was more ignorance than evil. And possibly some mental instability to boot.

“See?” Spike told Benny, “they get that tone of voice going, and it’s easier to just give in. Of course, in my case, I can take the boy home and gag him if he talks too much. Time to go, Harris.”

“What did you say?” Xander asked.

“Move your arse, that’s what I said.” Spike dragged Martin toward the door.

“They’re going to kill me. You have to stop them,” Martin cried out.

“He’s the one you came to kill, idiot,” Spike complained before he shoved him out into the night. Xander gave Elizabeth and Benny another look, but he’s seen that face often enough to know what it meant—that was Joyce’s patented “you are going to tell me everything” face.

“We aren’t going to hurt him,” Xander promised, “Dean and Sam can have him back. And hopefully they can take him back to the hospital. He's not all that sane.” Xander darted out after Spike before Elizabeth could get cranky at him. That was one upset woman, and he did not envy Benny.


	32. Now he has second thoughts

“Sam is going to kill you,” Martin said right before Spike shoved a sock in his mouth and then tied a strip of cloth around Martin’s head to hold it there. Xander sat at the edge of the bed and replayed the last part of the conversation with Benny in his head over and over. The L word had definitely gotten dropped. Hadn’t it?

Xander looked at Martin as he sat in the ugly chair next to the uglier table and wondered if this was a conversation he really wanted to have with crazy guy in the room. Probably not.

Martin reached up to pull the gag off, and Spike put a finger in his face. “Do and I’ll hogtie you,” he threatened.

“And that is not so much of a threat and more of a something he does a lot,” Xander offered. “Seriously, bugging the vampire—not a good idea.”

“Coming from you, that’s a bit of irony, innit?” Spike asked.

Xander made a face and looked over at Martin again. This really wasn’t a conversation for unfriendly ears. Sighing, Xander went with burning issue number two. “You know the Winchesters are going to come pretty quick.”

“Yeah, and?”

“And I am really not okay with them thinking we’re on different sides. You know how Buffy always seems to kill the monster of the week, well Dean and Sam sort of have that same reputation,” Xander pointed out. “I really wish this Buffy was like our Buffy because Buffy and Dean—that is a pairing to make all evil doers quake in their boots.”

“Why are you assuming she’s not like out Buffy?” Spike pulled the second chair away from the rickety table and put it in front of the door before sitting down.

“Because there are no slayers in this world.”

“And Red’s not a witch.”

Xander blinked. “I’m sorry, but did I miss some piece of logic that would make that statement logical?”

Spike sighed. “You said it yourself, pet. Red managed to land in the soup, even without the slaying and magic to pull her in. People aren’t so different. The other you was still her friend, still a nob.”

“And he died in an earthquake.” As far as Xander was concerned, that was about as different as it got. If Xander had one talent in the world, it was an amazing ability to stay alive when all the odds were against it.

“I thought we’d lost you on that last day,” Spike said.

“That’s rich coming from the guy who let himself get turned into a giant ball of flame to save the world.” Xander felt a twinge of anxiety even thinking about it. If someone had to volunteer to be the Molotov cocktail, he would have volunteered Angel for the job. “I was never in danger.”

Spike gave him an incredulous look.

“Much,” Xander amended himself. “But still, Buffy is still in LA, which implies a lack of Buffster.”

“And Red went to Europe for schoolin’ and still ended up doing pretty much what she does in our world.”

Xander frowned. “Cast spells?” The second the words were out his mouth, Xander cringed.

Yep, that was a Spike smirk right on schedule. “This Red really doesn’t cast spells, but then maybe that’s because she hasn’t met Tara.”

Xander wrinkled his nose up. “Wait, if people here are mirrors of people in our world, what about Tara and her family?”

“I already checked before I sprung you from Rupert’s place. She walked out on her family and hasn’t shown up again. She’s a bright one, so she’s in hiding somewhere. But even if this Red has a few more hangups than ours, she’s still using that big brain of hers to support the frontline fighters,” Spike pointed out.

“Oh.” Xander knew that. Actually, he really did know that because he’d even thought it was a little funny the way Willow had taken a completely different path to pretty much the same place. “But Buffy can’t be the same. She’s human here.”

“And you just made an almost coherent argument that human doesn’t mean weak. Bloody hell, do you even listen to what comes out your mouth or is all your logic based on what you feel in that second as opposed to actual logic?”

“I refuse to answer on the grounds that I might make myself look more stupid than usual.”

Spike rolled his eyes, but at least he didn’t make fun of Xander. For a time, they sat in silent. Xander played with the bottom of his shirt, and kept going into his visions. Either Martin was in need of more psychotherapy than any dozen people should need or he had the crappiest life in the history of living. Well maybe the third worst because Sam and Dean pretty much had one and two “Did you check to see how the other you died, Harris?”

Xander shrugged. “In an earthquake.”

“He was last seen running toward a sinkhole to save some random chit. The girl got out, Harris didn’t. That Alexander Harris might not have been as strong or trained long enough to get his arse out of trouble, but he had your same knack for getting into it. Stupid git was brave enough to put other people ahead of himself. He was probably just as big of a knobhead.”

“Gee, thanks,” Xander said dryly. Even when Spike was complimenting him, it came out sounding a lot like an insult. “But do you really think we should look up Buffy?”

Spike shrugged. “I never said that.”

“Yes you did. You just said she might be a fighter, even if she’s not a slayer.”

Spike propped his boot up on the end of the bed. “And what in that suggests we should go find her?”

Xander frowned. “Isn’t that a given?”

“Nope.”

“But she—”

“Has her own life, same as Red, same as Benny, same as Dorsey and every other poor sap we’re pulling into this.”

“So we shouldn’t be talking to anyone, is that what you’re saying?” Xander demanded.

“Watch the tone, pet,” Spike warned, yellow bleeding into his eyes.

Xander almost exploded, but if he did, he would definitely be gagged when the Winchesters showed up, and that would not be of the good. Xander took a deep breath and started again. “Spike, exactly what are you saying we should do about Buffy?”

Spike shrugged. “Like I told you, pet, when you live as long as we do, you learn to do what you like. I’m not saying we find her, and I’m not saying we don’t. I’m saying that both are choices. You run around acting like we have to do one thing or another. We don’t.”

“So, you don’t mind if we do go and see her.” Xander was officially confused.

Spike shrugged. “It’s as good a place to go as any, but it’s a choice, pet. Stop acting like the universe is pushing you around and start taking control. You are choosing to meddle in people’s lives. You. You’re standing up and saying that the darkness has gone too far. There’s no great force that making you stand up against that darkness. We could just as well steal enough dosh to ride this out in a little apartment with a big telly. So you take control here.”

“You mean so you can take the control away from me again?” Xander asked.

Spike’s lip twitched. “Right then, it might be that I enjoy knowing that I can hogtie you and stuff your mouth full when you get too big for your britches.”

“I noticed.” Xander reached up and tugged on the collar locked around his neck.

Spike’s smile softened. “But that doesn’t mean that you’re some helpless waif wandering from one point to another. Finding the Winchesters is a choice, not some piece of bloody destiny you’re fulfilling.”

Xander grimaced. Okay, so fulfilling destiny sucked, and being one of Buffy’s best friends, Xander understood that better than most people, although her destiny would have been significantly less sucky without the Watchers. Or the other Watchers, anyway, because Giles had helped keep them all alive. However, Xander didn’t like the idea of being destinyless. He wanted to have some purpose, and he really didn’t want that purpose to be spawning demons.

Spike leaned forward on the chair. “You always feel it, don’t you?”

“Feel what?” Xander asked.

“Don’t rightly know.” Spike leaned back. “When I first started coming ‘round, I thought you were always trying to prove that you had balls enough to run with the others. But the more I found out about you, the more it seemed like you had more than that in your mind. You faced off against Angel and Angelus. Hell, you went up against bloody gods, and no one does that just to prove they have the wrinklies to do it. I don’t know what it is that makes you run around and gather up all your mates, but you do. Let the world finally feel safe, and you run off to Africa to gather up more slayers. You don’t know how to stop, do you?”

“What?” Xander’s brain was like a little gerbil caught on a turbo powered wheel with no exit. “You’re making me sound a little obsessive.”

“If the shoe fits…” Spike said with a snort.

“I don’t have to do anything.”

Spike pursed his lips.

“I don’t. I just don’t see why people shouldn’t work together. Like Giles, I mean our Giles, when he first came to Sunnydale he was all about the one girl. One. Singular. He would have been happy if we had all left Buffy to fight alone. How does that make sense?”

“It doesn’t,” Spike agreed.

“Exactly. It’s not with the making sense. And Africa… Andrew was all about the bad infrastructure and lack of mass transportation and political instabilities. And hey, if there’s a confirmed report, they can teleport a team to a specific spot using magic. Do you know how many slayers he would have missed with his dumb ass plan?”

“Plenty.”

“Wait, what are we fighting about?”

Spike gave him one of those long-suffering looks and leaned back in his chair. “About you admitting that every one of those is a choice, luv. You chose to go to Africa—”

“Not really. If I didn’t, slayers would have died.”

“If you’d died in Sunnydale, do you think Andrew would have packed a bag and headed for the continent?”

“Fat chance,” Xander said. Maybe there was a little part of him that resented Andrew for replacing him as the goofy sidekick of the group, but a bigger part hated that Andrew never stood up and did the right thing—not until someone shoved his nose in it and made him.

“Exactly. You chose. If you want to go find Buffy and find out if she’s still the beautifully deadly creature she is in our world, we can. But it’s a choice. Bloody hell, pet, you’re annoying, intemperate, quick to condemn anyone who doesn’t fit into the world as you see it. You’re even giving Peaches a good run on the most annoying nit contest. But the one thing you always do right is choosing to put yourself out there in this quest to bring people together. Don’t dismiss your one good trait as some sort of biological imperative like breathin’.”

“My one… I only have one good trait?”

“That’s one more than Angel.” Spike’s smirk returned.

“And I don’t understand most of those insults. Your poet is showing.”

Spike shrugged. “Mostly they’re the same faults I have.”

“Wait. Are you saying you aren’t perfect?”

Spike started laughing. “I’m no more perfect than you are, Harris. I’m just better at not getting tied up on a regular basis.”

“Well then, that means I have two good traits.”

Spike raised an eyebrow at him.

“You really like tying me up, so my ability to get tied up would be a good thing from your point of view, so that makes a second good trait.”

Spike smiled. It was one of those small smiles that Xander rarely saw, and that particular expression warmed his heart.

“Well then, I guess you’re two up on the poof.”

“Yep,” Xander agreed. “Now, are we going to sleep in shifts or what? Xander could almost swear he felt the approaching sunrise in his bones. Either that or he was simply bone weary. Either way, he was definitely looking forward to some sleep.

“Considering that Benny is out there with some human, I wouldn’t recommend it.”

“A human?” Xander got up and went to the window, pushing the heavy curtain aside to look out. “Is it Dean or Sam? It’s hard to tell because the covers made both of them look a little gay pornish, and Benny’s friend looks normal.”

“Gay pornish? What sort of porn have you been sneaking when no one is looking?” Spike asked with way too much amusement in his voice.

Xander could feel his face heat up. “It was purely accidental. I was looking for lesbian porn, Spike. Lesbian, as in two women. Double the boobies, double the fun.”

“Right,” Spike said.

“I clicked the wrong button.”

“Sure, luv.”

“I did. I wasn’t looking… oh thank God. They’re pulling out weapons and heading this way,” Xander said. Potential mayhem and violence for the save. What the hell had made him admit to watching gay porn? Xander definitely needed to check the verbal filter… assuming that he wasn’t dead after a visit from the Winchesters. As a member of a group of underdogs, Xander knew how sometimes the underdog could take out the most dangerous enemy.

Maybe Spike felt the same way because he pulled off his coat and flung it to the side before bouncing on his toes to loosen up. Show time.


	33. Worlds collide

Spike shoved Martin out the door in front of them. Martin's hands grabbed at Spike's coat, which seemed slightly on the stupid side. Then again, Xander used to do that a lot. He'd grab at someone he had absolutely no chance of actually beating in a fight. That's how he'd lost his eye.

"You lose this one?" Spike asked as the two guys stopped in the middle of the parking lot. Clearly they hadn’t expected Spike to come out to meet them, and Xander could see the wariness on Benny's face. The the other guy looked downright furious.

"Hand him over," the new guy ordered. Xander held his breath, afraid of what Spike might say.

Spike shrugged. "Okay." He gave Martin a push toward them. Martin's eyes got all big and for a second he seemed to forget to move. Then he scrambled toward the new guy, pulling the gag out of his mouth.

"Dean... Dean... he's a vampire. But I stabbed him with dead man's blood and it didn't stop him."

"Martin," Dean said slowly, "Long time no see. Oh, wait. Actually, it wasn't long enough. What are you thinking trying to hunt?"

Martin stopped, and Xander could almost taste the man's frustration. When Xander checked his visions, he could see dozens of monsters... dozens and dozens of them... all cringing away from Martin. Okay, that was creepy, especially since technically Xander was one of the monsters now. Still, Xander couldn’t help but feel a little sympathy. He’d been the totally human in a world full of people stronger than him.

"In his defense, he might have actually done it if it hadn't been for Spike overhearing him," Xander said in Martin's defense. Then he cringed as he looked at the thunderous expression on Benny's face. "Not that it would have been of the good, because killing a random person by threatening another random person is definitely bad, especially when one of the two people involved were human and kind of clueless."

"She was. She ain't no more, and I have you to thank for that," Benny said, and it was pretty clear he was using the word "thank" ironically.

“Um. You’re welcome?” Xander said. Spike gave a rough laugh.

“Now that we have a little more privacy, how about we have a conversation,” Benny suggested.

“And by conversation, he means we talk about all the reasons we have to cut your heads off,” Dean said with a scary sort of good humor.

“Way to be rude to the people who saved your friend,” Xander said, “not that I get the whole friendship because when I read about you, you were all ‘Oh Sam, all demons are evil. How can you sleep with a demon?’ And while I was on your side because Ruby was clearly on the creepy side, you were more about being closed minded. I was not really okay with that,” Xander said fiercely.

“You’re saying this is like Ruby? Really? And please tell me you didn’t read all that in those stupid books.”

“Um…” Xander made a face.

“Right then, don’t care,” Spike said. “You kill baddies, we came to offer a hand, this wanker was trying to kill someone, so we thought we’d do our good deed of the day.”

“You saved a vampire,” Martin screeched, and Dean winced, either from the sheer volume or from the reminder that he did seem to be siding with a vampire. After reading every single Supernatural story at least twice, Xander was pretty sure that was not Dean’s happy place.

“Martin, maybe you’d better wait in the car.”

“Oh, so you can leave me behind like Sam did?” He put his hands on his hips.

“If you’re in the car, I can’t leave without taking you with me,” Dean said in the sort of voice people usually reserved for crazy people and children they didn’t like.

Martin looked from Dean to Benny and back. Drawing himself upright, he announced. “I’m leaving town. And tell your brother that if he calls me again, he shouldn’t!” His back stiff with anger, Martin turned and stomped off toward the highway.

“You go near Lizzy, and I’ll gut ya and feed ya to the gators,” Benny called after him.

Martin turned, still walking backwards. “Don’t speak to me you foul hellbeast, you unholy thing.”

“Right, that doesn’t sound crazy, not at all,” Dean said wearily; however, he kept his eyes on Spike, and Xander was noticing a definitely lack of hands. Well, not lack as in Dean didn’t have them as much as Dean had his hands in the pockets of his jacket, which implied weaponry. “I’m so glad that Sam asked crazy guy to get involved.”

“Remind me to thank him right and proper,” Benny agreed. He kept watching as Martin reached the highway, looked both ways, and then picked a direction—seemingly at random. “Well, either he’s going to end up in the swamp or in Baton Rouge. As long as he stays away from me and mine, I don’t much care.”

Dean sighed. “I’ll pick him up on the road later. However, first thing’s first. So, someone needs to give me one good reason why I shouldn’t start hunting.”

“Because we haven’t done anything that would make hunting us anything other than murder?” Xander guessed.

“Right. You guys are those good vampires,” Dean said in a slightly sarcastic voice. “No offense,” he then offered Benny.

“I ain’t so sure they’re vampires. They’re not like any vamps I ever met.”

“So they’re not vampirates?”

It took Xander a half second to mental review that term before the full glory really sank in. “Holy crap,” Xander blurted. “You’re a vampirate? Okay, there are extra cool points for that, and yeah, that probably puts you on the slay with prejudice list, but that’s a cool sort of slay-worthy.”

“Focus, nit,” Spike said, his hand tightening around Xander’s waist. “That one hasn’t had human blood in a good while, so whatever he is, he’s not on the list of creatures to slay.”

“Slay?" Dean asked. "So, we’re going for the medieval theme? I can go with that. Who gets to play the dragon and who plays the knight that chops it into little bits?”

Benny took a step forward, his gaze focused on Spike. “How about we stop talking about killing?”

“I like talking about killing,” Dean objected, but then he fell silent.

“Benny Lafitte,” he said holding out his hand to Spike. “Died the first time going on a hundred years ago. Got sent to Purgatory in the 1960s, and caught a ride topside again a while back.”

Spike took his own step forward and took Benny’s hand. “Spike. I used to use a human name, but haven’t been human since the 1800s so I just go by Spike. Never went to Purgatory. Spent some time in hell, didn’t like it. Came back.” Spike shifted so that he was looking right at Dean. Oh yeah, Dean had done his time in hell. And as Xander remembered it, a good time was not had by all. Well, it sounded like Alistair had liked it, but mostly everyone else had been less than happy with the accommodations.

“Hell? Before you got turned?” Benny made the words sound friendly enough, but he shifted so that he was between Spike and Dean.

“Bloody hell no. I was too much of a ponce when I was human to qualify for hell. I got turned, earned my soul back, and then got sent to hell.”

“Your soul?” Benny narrowed his eyes.

“My type of vampire generally loses the soul. A demon comes in and drives the lorry. I earned mine back.”

“Which is why Spike is not on the slay-list,” Xander added. “And as an official ex-member of the ‘I hate all vampires club,’ membership of one, if I say Spike is a good guy now, you can believe it.”

Benny looked over at Dean. “I think that club has at least one more member.” His gaze flicked toward the road where Martin had vanished.

“He doesn’t understand,” Dean said. The wariness and weariness made Xander ache a little. With the First, they’d all been like that—they were all twitching at every sound and waiting for the First to kill them all. Some days, Xander had not even wanted to climb out of bed, much less strap on the weapons and go into one more fight. When they’d turned on Buffy, it’d been fatigue as much as fear that had driven them. And right now, Dean looked that exhausted.

“Don’t seem like you’re making much of an effort to explain it,” Benny said, and the weariness was there too.

“Don’t know what you two are talking about, and I don’t soddin’ care,” Spike interrupted when the two of them looked like they might have a stare-down.

“We’re talking about Dean’s brother putting Lizzy in the firing line,” Benny said.

“What part of ‘don’t care’ did you miss?” Spike asked.

“He was doing what he thought was right.”

“Thought. That’d be the word. But thinking ain’t the same as being right, Dean.”

“For fuck’s sake,” Spike snarled. “Dean’s not responsible for whatever his git of a brother did, and you let the bint wander through without telling her what she needed to know to defend herself.” Spike poked a finger at Benny.

Benny snarled, vicious teeth like piranha sprouting out of his gums. Maybe he thought that would intimidate, but Spike flashed into gameface and bared his fangs.

“Are you two done comparing dick size, or do you want to throw down and naked wrestle?” Dean asked. He brought his hands out from his jacket and crossed his arms. “Because right now you two look like you’re having the most disturbing courtship ritual I’ve seen outside of hentai-style porn.”

Benny took a step back. “Lizzy’s a human. I'm not putting her in the middle of our world.”

“So’s this one,” Spike said as he poked a thumb toward Dean. “For that matter, Harris was a human when he pulled his most spectacularly stupid moves like trying to take on a two hundred year old master vampire. Like the boy told you earlier, human doesn’t mean weak. Hell, seems like in this universe, vampires are an endangered species.”

“This universe?” Dean jumped on the two words. “This universe as opposed to the fictional world that you were dreamed out of or maybe Purgatory?”

“Boy came through Purgatory, but we’re from an alternate reality. Different monsters, different rules, vampires who aren’t on the verge of going extinct because they have the survival instincts of lemmings,” Spike gave Benny a nasty smile.

Dean gave a quick laugh. “And you expect us to believe that?”

“I don’t bloody care. You can go and ruin your own life if you want,” Spike said.

“Then why ask about me and Sam?” Dean was on the offense now.

“Actually, that was me,” Xander said, raising his hand. “Xander Harris,” he said as he stepped forward to offer a handshake, but that ended in a yelp as Spike jerked him back so that Xander was one step safely behind him. “Overprotective much?” Xander asked.

“Yes,” Spike agreed, his fingers tightening more on Xander’s arm. “I can go and get the leash if you’re going to make a fuss about it.”

“No. Overprotective good. I mean, have you met Willow? There’s a picture of her next to overprotective in the dictionary. Literally. I glued it there in tenth grade.”

Spike rolled his eyes.

“So, is this show for me? Because after all the flirting with Benny, you’re making him jealous.”

“Dean,” Benny warned softly.

“Might want to tread softly, luv,” Spike suggested. “For most… monsters… fighting and figuring out who has the bigger wrinklies is the first step in a courtship. Depending on whether someone seems weak, step two would be shoving them down and buggering them.”

“But… really?” Dean looked over at Benny, and he just shrugged. Dean wrinkled up his nose. “Okay, that’s just wrong. How am I supposed to fight with Sammy after that?”

“You’re not monsters,” Benny said.

Dean snorted.

“Hey,” Xander said, jumping in before this conversation could get any worse, because it was not off to a stellar start to begin with. “In my world, there’s one girl in all the world who has all the power to fight demons, and mostly the girls are expected to fight alone. That sounds a little like you and Sam getting stuck with the demon hunting gig when you don’t really have much support. I mean, I read the books so I know Bobby does a lot—”

“He’s dead,” Dean said sharply.

Xander’s mouth was open, but he couldn’t get sound out. Bobby was dead. Bobby. Father figure Bobby who fixed everything. The Giles to their Buffy. Xander felt the news like a punch to the gut, and Spike tugged him closer and put his arm back around Xander’s waist rather than continuing to leave finger bruises on Xander’s arm.

Dean turned around and started back toward the car. “I don’t have time for this.”

“No! Wait,” Xander pulled against Spike’s hold and tried to chase him, but suddenly Benny was there, snarling. Spike leaped forward, and shoved at Benny, sending him stumbling back, and then Dean whirled around, a machete in his hand before Xander could blink.

Spike turned to face off against Dean, and Benny leaped forward, hands curled into claws. Spike had to turn and face him, and then Dean was moving, machete held high.

“NO!” Xander bellowed, and he felt something like a bandage getting ripped off, only it felt like it was getting ripped off his guts. Heat flashed through him, and he dropped to one knee, but that wasn’t all that much of a problem because Spike, Dean, and Benny were all out cold. Dean’s body was crumpled next to a Dean sized dent in his car, Benny was tangled in the remains of a motorcycle, and Spike was collapsed under a tree on the far side of the parking lot. And car alarms were going off. A lot of them.

“Shit,” Xander said softly to himself. Spike was so killing him.

“What the fuck is going on out there?” Some man yelled from one of the other hotel rooms.

“Drunk guys. Passed out drunk guys,” Xander yelled back.

“Then shut the fuck up,” the guy answered.

“Oh, they’re shut up,” Xander said to himself. He could see their lifeforce—even Spike’s and Benny’s, although theirs were a little more plastered on instead of growing from inside. So all three were alive or at least the walking undead. When Spike woke up, Xander was not going to be that lucky. “Let’s get you guys inside,” Xander said to no one in particular. Feeling like an idiot… an idiot with no control over randomly sprouting powers no less… Xander headed over to Spike. “And after that, I am definitely going to need to feed,” he admitted as he struggled to get an arm under Spike and lift him.

Yep. Just perfect.


	34. Awkward conversations

Xander slipped back in the hotel room after his hunt. If he had to throw away all his energy, doing it near a swamp was pretty handy. Swamps had way more life in them than Xander thought. Of course, a chunk of swamp now had significantly less life, but Xander didn’t feel even a little bit guilty about taking out a half dozen birds, several dozen frogs, two alligators, and a boatload of insects. The world could live without any of them, and Xander’s legs no longer felt shaky. Of course the six rotisserie chickens and dozen bags of chips he’d bought from the all night supermarket helped too.

Locking the hotel door behind him, he checked on the others. Spike was on one bed with a very tied up Dean on the other one. Xander let his hand rest on Spike’s shoulder for a second. Really listening, he could almost hear the life hear the rustling of the life force under his hand. And honestly, he was pretty sure he was totally hallucinating things at this point, but Spike wasn’t dust, so he would recover.

Benny was on the floor between the beds, and Xander had used their heaviest shackles on the other vampire. Again, Xander could sense the lifeforce, but he didn’t seem in a hurry to wake up.

“I don’t entirely like this new power,” Xander muttered as he moved over to check on Dean. Being that he was the human and that he’d had a pretty up close and brutal encounter with a car door, Xander worried most about him. Of course that didn’t keep him from tying Dean up hand and foot. When Xander put his hand on Dean’s shoulder, he could feel something shifting under his hand. Xander watched as Dean stirred. However, after a second, he went completely still, so he was awake.

"Morning," Xander said. It actually was morning, but Dean had only been out of it for about two or three hours.

After a second, a wary green eye opened. Xander gave Dean some time, watching as he strained at the ropes, testing their strength. He was out of luck if he thought he could get away. After getting stuck babysitting a tied up Oz, a tied up Spike, a tied up Andrew, and then a tied up Spike again, he was kind of good at making sure that people stayed put.

Xander started getting uncomfortable as the silence went on too long. Dean had long since given up on escaping, but he was still watching. "I'm really sorry about the whole knocking you out thing. I really didn't know that would happen, which still doesn't make it right. Are you okay?"

With his hands cuffed behind his back, Dean rolled awkwardly onto his side. "So you knocked me out by accident?"

"Kinda." Xander stepped over Benny and sat on the bed with Spike.

Dean was giving him a pretty incredulous look. "And did you tie me up by accident?"

"Hey. Justified here. You kill people like me."

"You're not people,” Dean shot right back.

Xander frowned. "Okay, that's kinda true, but that doesn't mean that you can just kill me. I'm a good guy. Good guy."

"Who goes around knocking people out and then tying them up," Dean added.

That made Xander wilt just a little bit. After reading all the books, Xander liked Dean. Okay, so he’d been a little bit of an asshole in the beginning, pulling Sam away from the one life where he really fit, but still. Xander liked him. Being an asshole didn’t actually disqualify someone from the likeable category. Actually, most of Xander’s male friends actually were assholes. "For someone who's tied up, you really do complain a little too much."

"Funny enough, you're not the first person to say that. So, what's the plan here? Eat the captive? Human sacrifice? I have to warn you, I haven't been a virgin since sixth grade and Mrs. Reynolds." Dean have him a completely inappropriate grin.

"Thank you for creeping me out."

"I creeped out the monster. Cut me loose, and I’ll add that to my diary.” Dean rolled his eyes. “You know, my baby better be okay or there won't be a corner of the world that I won't find you."

Xander’s stomach dropped. "You have a baby?” He leaped to his feet, the need to start searching already making him twitchy. “Crap. How old? Where I can find him. Wait, is it a him?" Xander felt panic roll through him. How long could a baby survive alone, especially when he was near hunters who tended to attract bad guys. Dean was still staring at him like Xander had stopped speaking English, which wasn’t entirely impossible. “I’m not going to kill a baby. I mean, I haven’t killed you or Benny, and right now you two are pretty high on the annoyance list. But you can’t leave a baby out there. Tell me where to find him. Or her. Whatever.”

Dean spoke the his words slowly, enunciating each. "It's an Impala."

Xander frowned. Maybe that was a type of demon, and if Dean had a demon baby, Xander was not asking any questions, not with his own history with demon women. He might have developed a raging case of misogyny only women had just as much trouble with demon men. Human Darla and Dru and that delinquent girl who had to plan parent-teacher night with Buffy probably spent just as much time talking crap about crappy demon men. "Okay..." Xander let the word trail off.

"My car," Dean snapped. "My car had better be okay."

Xander cringed.

"What did you do?" Dean demanded, arching up off the bed.

"Nothing!" Xander slowly sank back down onto the bed. He was really not looking forward to Dean seeing the huge dent in the passenger side door.

"That face is not nothing. That face is getting caught looking at porn by your teacher when you aren't old enough to just invite her to look at it with you."

"You know, you're oddly obsessed with porn,” Xander pointed out.

For a second, Dean almost looked surprised or maybe embarrassed. It was hard to tell. "It's been too long since I got laid,” he said in a totally flat voice.

"Okay, that's disturbing. And I didn't do anything to your car. Technically. Technically, you dented it."

"I dented it?”

"When I threw you into it," Xander admitted. "But in the books you're into car repair so technically that's good news because it gives you a reason to work on the car."

Dean rolled back onto his stomach and pressed his face to the pillow for a second. Only a second. Then he faced Xander again. "You're a little on the dumb side, aren't you?"

"Possibly."

"Well then, let me use little words. Why did you tie me up?"

"So you didn't kill me?"

“You could have avoided that by not attacking.”

“You attacked us.”

“Are you kidding? You came after us.”

“No we didn’t. Benny tried to jump on me.”

“You tried to jump me when I turned my back,” Dean shot right back.

“No I didn’t.”

“Yes, you did.”

“Says who?”

“Says me, and since I wasn’t trying to jump on you, and I’m the expert on me, then I’m the expert on me not jumping people.”

“Bloody hell,” Spike groaned as he pulled his arms over his head. “Pet, I’m gagging you as soon as I can crawl off this bed and find the gag.”

“That’s the best idea I’ve heard for a while.” Dean offered.

Spike pushed himself up so fast that Xander nearly slipped off the bed. The second Spike noticed Dean tied up, his alarm faded and his yellow eyes faded back to blue.

“Right then, so it wasn’t the Winchester morons that took me out. That leaves you.” Spike turned his glare toward Xander.

“By accident. I took you out by accident,” Xander explained. Spike kept staring so long and so viciously that Xander slid off the bed and was going to move to one of the chairs, only Spike caught his wrist and pulled him close.

“You took me out by accident?” Spike sounded not happy.

“I think I blasted you with energy, not that I’m exactly sure. I was a little upset.”

Spike sighed and rested his forehead on Xander’s back. “Remind me to pick up some valium.”

“I’m really hoping that’s a joke,” Xander said softly. Spike lifted his head and looked Xander right in the eye long enough to make it clear that he wasn’t joking.

“So, are you always this pathetically submissive, or is this a show for me?”

“Nope, I’m always this pathetically submissive,” Xander answered. He kept his poker face on as his words knocked the air right out of Dean and his insults. Xander had learned a long time ago that the best way to take the sting out of other people’s insults was to agree with them… or even make a joke out of himself first. Xander had dealt with bullies way meaner than Dean could dream of, so one little mostly honest comment about submissiveness wasn’t going to bother him.

“Insult him again, and he won’t be wearing the gag,” Spike warned before he focused back on Xander. “Now luv, how’s your energy?”

“I ate enough food for a village, and after traveling through some of the poorer parts of African I can say that the amount of chicken I ate today would have literally fed some villages. I then went into the swamp and created a little death zone, and now I feel fine.”

“Death zone?” Dean demanded. “For someone who keeps trying to claim that he’s a good guy, you have a strange vocabulary.”

Xander snorted. “Have you listened to yourself lately? You’re not exactly ready for prime time. Seriously, how many times can you make porn references?”

“Me? You’re the one who looks like he’s about to crawl down a vampire’s pants.” Dean made a point of looked at where Spike’s hands were on Xander’s hips. “And you won’t even answer when I want to know if I’m the human sacrifice for whatever game you’re playing, so you don’t get to play the innocent here. And by the way, I’m harder to kill than I look. And yes, I know that tied up I look easy to kill, but monsters bigger than you have tried and failed.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake. We’re not killing you,” Spike interrupted before Xander could go off on the idea of failure. “We came here to try and get you some help because this idiot thought you deserved more than a swift kick on the arse when you were off saving the world. Now,” Spike said focusing on Xander, “do you have enough blood to share? I’m too peckish to put up with your shite.”

Xander nodded and tipped his head a little to the side. Dean started making kissy noises at him. As much as Xander had loved Dean in the books, in real life he was considerably more annoying. Ignoring Dean, Spike slid his arm around Xander and then sank his fangs into Xander’s shoulder.

Xander let his head fall back and relaxed into the weird sense of joining that he always got when Spike fed. It was like he could feel himself sliding free of his body and merging with Spike.

“And he complains about me and porn?” Dean muttered, but he did it loud enough that if someone had been hiding in the bathroom, they still would have been able to hear it. Yep, annoying.

Spike lifted his head, and Xander blinked. At the moment that Spike stopped, he always felt off balance, like he had to hold onto something or risk falling off the ground.

“So, is it my turn?” Dean asked, and now there was a barely disguised panic in his voice.

“Not unless you volunteer a little,” Spike said. He seemed to be ignoring the panic, and Xander tried to concentrate on their conversation. He didn’t have his balance back yet, and Spike stroked his side in a way that made Xander want to curl up and sleep, so it wasn’t easy. “I feed from Xander because he can spare it, and most times he gets his own energy by eating like a bloody horse.”

“I don’t eat plants, not even vegetables,” Xander pointed out. “Unless they’re tomatoes and made into tomato sauce for a pizza. That is the only reasonable exception to the vegetable rule.”

“Right then, you just eat like a fifteen year old boy.”

“Oddly accurate,” Xander agreed. He grabbed Spike’s wrist so that he would stop with the petting before Xander actually did fall asleep.

“Right, because you’re good monsters. That’s not actually the first time I’ve heard that line. It always ends with someone going to hell.”

Spike looked at Xander. “It’s your call, pet. We can give him the information or we can walk away and save Red the trouble of having to deal with the wanker.”

“I resemble that remark,” Dean said. “Often. Ambidextrously even.”

Spike glared at him.

Xander didn’t want to torture Willow. Yeah, this Willow was a little annoying and needed someone to kick her ass, but sending Dean her way felt a little like having the mayor eat Principal Snyder. Justified, yes. Satisfying, a little bit. However, it was overkill to a pretty serious degree. On the other side, Willow had a whole support network of military people with really big guns. That could have come in handy in a whole bunch of the books Xander had read. Maybe if Dean had people to back him up, he could have either save Sam from that first death or had someone to point out that selling yourself to hell was a bad plan. That was the sort of plan that made Spike look like a planning genius.

“Look,” Xander said firmly before he could change his mind. “The military is actually trying to keep Earth out of the middle of a war with two slightly assholish alien species. And clearly this is a huge military secret, and I wouldn’t know it except that the branch of the military that deals with the aliens knows about demons. So we got an… okay, they kidnapped us,” Xander said when Spike’s fingers pressed into his thigh. “They trusted us about as much as you do.”

“Smart people,” Dean said.

“Not really,” Spike offered. “They thought that hell was only dangerous for those stupid enough to trade their souls away. It seems like the end of the world slipped right by them.”

“Then they really aren’t that smart. However, I still don’t see why that leads to me getting tied up in a vampire lair.”

“You’re here because you and yours made an aggressive move toward my boy,” Spike said firmly.

“See, I told you that you started it,” Xander said.

“He didn’t. You did,” Spike disagreed. “When he turned away, you tried to pull him back. Knowing you the way I do, you only meant to talk, but he couldn’t know that, and you’re too soddin’ used to people discounting you as a fighter.” Spike tugged on one of Xander’s curls. “But I don’t care if he sprouts wings and starts beating on you with a rusted tire iron. You lift one finger in return, and I’ll take you out,” Spike threatened Dean.

Instead of looking cowed, Dean smirked. “Aw. It’s monster love. Can you do the balcony scene now?”

Spike blinked at him.

“No? Maybe you can skip right to the bow-chika-wow-wow.”

Spike stood up and headed for the bathroom muttering about being too grubby to deal with assholes. Dean watched him go, his body twisting around on the bed until Spike closed the bathroom door. Then he turned his attention back to Xander.

“You really think we’re going to kill you, don’t you?” Xander asked. The only times he got this assholish were with monsters like Angelus who had personal reasons to hate and kill Xander. Otherwise, he didn’t bother poking the bad guys. He just waited until they were focused on Buffy and then staked them in the back.

“I think you’re going to try,” Dean agreed. “I don’t actually think you’re monster enough to finish the job.”

“I don’t think I am either,” Xander said. “Killing is not my thing.”

“Because you’re a good monster. Rainbows come out your ass when you fart and you ride unicorns during the full moon,” Dean finished with a knowing nod. He really was a pain in the ass.

“I was pretty much you until two or three months ago,” Xander said. He could hear the shower go on in the other room.

“Oh, here’s where you convince me that it’s in my best interest to help you. Okay. Give it your best shot, Sport.” Dean wiggled around like he was settling in for a long story.

“Buffy, my best friend, is the slayer, the one girl in all the world who has the power to protect the world from all the baddies, which is not to say the rest of us don’t fight, but Buffy is pretty much the one who gets the job done while the rest of us are flailing.”

“So you’re exactly like me except you’re incompetent,” Dean summarized. Xander made a conscious decision to ignore the heckling.

“And she has killed gods and demons and monsters, oh my. She kicks ass, and mostly I’m there to do damage control. I staked a few vampires, tripped a few monsters. One time, I actually threw glitter. It’s all I could grab, and the vampire was going at Buffy’s back when she was fighting three other vampires. It distracted him long enough for her to do her spin and quip and stake routine. And Edward Cullen jokes were had by all.”

“Edward Cullen?”

“Nevermind. I come from one of those alternate realities where God tortures us with bad fiction. But the point is that I was a fighter of good, and maybe not a great fighter of good, but I was right there when the fights were won. Only I took a few hits, and one was a big magical hit. So when one of the old big-bads went looking for someone she could monsterfy, Eve picked me.”

“Eve?” Up to this point, Dean had watched with the sort of expectant expression that usually meant someone was waiting for a chance to make fun of Xander. Now his expression turned serious. “What do you know about Eve?”

“I know you poisoned her with Phoenix ash and she couldn’t make more monsters. She pulled me out of my reality because one of those fights that I was there for left me with a big pool of not-nice magical energy sloshing around inside me. So if I don’t have a lot of control, it’s because I genuinely don’t have a lot of control.”

“Eve made you?” Dean studied Xander much more carefully now.

“Yes, that makes me an alpha or an alph or an ox, depending on which language you use to describe me. And that’s why Spike sits on me so much because he’s not willing to let me get all toppy or, more likely, all stupid, with all this power I have.

Dean actually looked shaken. “An alpha?”

“Who has philosophical differences with his monster mother,” Xander added. “She wants monsters to hunt humans. I pretty much have always been on the side of humans hunting monsters.”

“And now?” Dean asked sharply. “If all this is true, do you want to hunt humans? Drink them down? Feel their power soak into your body as you feed on them?”

“Weirdly specific,” Xander said. Dean had a real talent for creeping him out.

Dean grimaced. “I got turned once. I held the hunger off until we could take out the vamp who had turned me and use a spell to give me back my humanity, but I remember. I know how—when you’re first turned—the draw of the blood sings to you.”

“Pretty much the smell of chocolate sings to me, but most humans are definitely non-chocolately. Now leviathans? Oh yeah. Don’t tell Spike, but if I smelled a leviathan right now, I’m not taking any bets on how long I could avoid going after it.”

“You hunt leviathan?”

“The one I found, and trust me, if you know where more are, I am happy to eat any more you can find. But the difference is that I wasn’t turned. Eve used the energy I already had inside of me. I have always been, if not exactly a hunter, a helper of hunters who fixed things that the hunters either broke or didn’t have time to fix themselves. Give me a backed up toilet, broken door, a quest for something lost or a weapon that needs cleaning, and I’m like a California girl in a sushi shop. I eat it up. But I had help. I had Giles to do the fathering thing and Willow to be the friend and doer of mojo, and Buffy to be the ass-kicker, and Tara to put on band-aids and kiss scraped elbows, and Oz to get all philosophical, and Anya to…” Xander swallowed as he thought about her smiling face. He couldn’t talk about her, not with someone who was barely out of the enemy category. “And I had Spike to kick ass while threatening me.”

“A vampire.” That flat tone was back in Dean’s voice.

“Funny enough, I wasn’t the only one who came with a vampire.”

“Benny has proved himself. He got me out of purgatory, and he’s not on human blood anymore.” From the cold tone in Dean’s voice, Xander had hit a sore spot.

“Spike earned his soul back, and when a bad guy had me by the neck, he saved me. He even stood in the opening of a hellmouth and used his own soul to fuel a weapon that saved our world. He died. He died and went to hell, and we barely got him back. He has proved himself just as much as Benny.”

Dean stared at him, and Xander looked back, willing the man to believe him. If the good guys couldn’t or wouldn’t work together, the bad guys were always going to win in the end. Xander believed that. That’s why so many slayers died by the age of sixteen. Humans were not designed to fight alone.

“And you want to… what? Join my merry band?”

“You are short a Friar Tuck,” Xander pointed out with a small smile. Dean just stared at him. “The government group that knows about demons—they know about you and they would help you if they could. They could run interference with local law enforcement or send out backup if you got in trouble.”

“Or throw me in a cell or simply kill me.”

Xander shook his head. “They didn’t kill me. They scared me… they scared me the way you did, and things ended up slightly not of the good, but they had more backup so they weren’t the ones who ended up in cuffs.”

“They captured you?” Dean sounded interested now.

Xander nodded. “And they weren’t thrilled. We were there for a long time before someone attacked and we escaped in the chaos, but that’s because they don’t trust monsters. I wouldn’t recommend that you introduce them to Benny.”

Dean laughed. “I figured that. Unlike some people, I haven’t knocked all my brain cells loose. Not yet, anyway.”

Xander was going to make fun of himself again, only Benny started to stir.

“Benny, are you okay?” Dean wiggled closer to the edge of the bed. Neither Dean nor Xander was prepared when Benny let out a low moan and then lurched up to his knees, his sharp teeth extended as he snapped at them. One bite came dangerously close to Xander’s knee before Xander could scramble backwards.

“Spike!” Xander bellowed as he looked in the empty hunger in Benny’s eyes.

Twisting around, Benny saw Dean and threw himself toward the other bed with a roar.


	35. A whole new set of problems

With Dean tied up, Xander felt a need to step in between. Benny got his feet on the ground and rocked forward, tipping toward Xander… and Dean, who was now cursing behind him. However, the second Benny’s shoulder brushed up against Xander, he threw himself backwards. Spike barreled into the room, a murderous expression on his face. He took one look at Benny and stopped.

“What the bloody hell? How long’s it been since he ate?” Spike demanded.

Benny snarled in his direction, and Spike growled back at him. That shut him up.

“Spike, fix this,” Xander said. The sound of Xander’s voice made Benny scoot backward, digging the heels of his boots into the mattress to scoot away from Xander. “Okay, that’s new. Usually the vampires try to eat me.”

“You’re a nummy treat,” Spike said absent-mindedly.

“I said that once. Once. You could drop it.”

“Or not,” Spike said with a shrug.

“Can you two do the old married act later?” Dean asked. “Untie me. Let me help him.”

“Right.” Spike snorted. “Like that’s going to happen. Besides, you get near him, and he’s going to drink you down like a pint. That’s raw bloodlust.”

Xander started talking. “I could—”

“Don't think it, Harris.”

“What? Why? You feed from me,” Xander snapped. Behind him, Dean muttered something under his breath.

When Spike turned to look at Xander, his eyes were yellow. “Yeah, and another vampire isn't.”

“What, don't you share your toys with the other kids?” Dean asked in an annoyingly cheerful voice. Benny’s head came up and he sniffed the air.

“No.” Spike said firmly, giving Xander a hard glare.

After rolling his eyes, Xander turned to look at Dean. “Embarrassing him into playing nice is not a good strategy. First, he doesn't embarrass. Second, he doesn't play nice. What sort of blood do we need to get? There are alligators. They should have a lot of blood.” Xander shifted his attention to Spike.

He was already shaking his head. “Unless you truly hate the man, alligator blood isn't going to work.”

“Okay, Spike, in case you haven't noticed, that seems to be a little past just hungry. We need to get him something.”

Benny had backed up into the corner of the room. Knees pulled in under him, he scanned the room and breathed deeply. He really looked like a starving wolf ready to pounce on something, and if his hands weren’t tied, he would definitely be trying to eat one of them. Of course with those teeth, he looked like a wolf in need of braces, but still… there was a predatory desperation there that made the hairs on the back of Xander’s neck stand up.

“That's the sort of blood lust most pledges wake up feeling. He’s not dying.”

Dean gave a rough laugh. “I’m ringing the bullshit bell on that one. I woke up as a vampire once. I wasn’t that hungry.”

“But…” Xander stopped and tried to figure out if there was a joke in there somewhere. If there was, he wasn’t seeing it. “If you woke up a vampire, that would mean you’re still a vampire, only you’re not. Ergo, you never were.”

“Just a hint, but using the word ‘ergo’ doesn’t actually make you sound smarter. Or even smart. I told you--we found a spell to fix it.”

Benny used his shoulder to push himself halfway up off the floor, and Xander didn't have time to worry about the improbability of that.

“Pet, scare the shite out of this one,” Spike said as he headed over toward Dean.

“Hey, no breaking the humans,” Xander protested, but he headed for Benny. Sure enough, the vampire cringed back away from him. Xander had always thought that intimidation was a pretty cool superpower. The reality was a lot less fun. The reality felt a little bit like being a bully or having a hyena in him, and Xander was not a fan of either.

“Now, you listen good, mate.” Spike leaned against the edge of the bed, bending over until he rested his hands right next to Dean’s prone body. Xander opened his mouth to yell out a warning just as Dean brought his knees up—aimed straight at Spike’s nose. Before Xander could get a word out, Spike’s hand darted out and grabbed Dean by the crotch. Xander hissed in sympathy as Dean utterly froze. “You listenin’?” Spike asked.

“I don’t swing that way, blondie.”

“As long as you have a hole, most monsters don’t much care, and if you don’t have a hole, it’s easy enough to make one.”

“And this is your ‘monsters can be good’ speech?” Dean gave a thready laugh. “You need to work on the spiel before you take it on the road.”

“Monsters can be good. Most aren’t,” Spike said.

“Officially not with the helping,” Xander complained softly, but Spike barely even flicked him a glance before focusing on Dean again.

“But we’re not from this universe. Your bloody mother of all monsters dragged us here when she got some hare up her ass. So maybe this world doesn’t have monsters that’d rather see the world keep right on spinning, but I suspect it does. I suspect you’ve met more than a few yourself, otherwise you wouldn’t be willing to cut Benny over there some slack.”

Dean had clenched his jaw shut.

“Lots of monsters just want to keep on doing what they do. That’s true here or you would be doing a lot more protesting. Now, can you lot cure vampirism? Were you a vamp? I don’t bloody know or care, but if you don’t keep a respectful tone in your voice when you talk to me and my boy, you’re going to find out how a monster keeps control of a situation.”

“Right. Play nice or it’s rape and torture time?” Dean asked. “Newsflash. I went to hell. You don’t have anything on Alistair. You couldn’t lick his boots.”

“I’ve been to hell too, luv. It’s not a place a place for heroes who put their lives on the line to save the masses of great unwashed. And you can ask the boy what bringing you in line would include, but when I get back, you’d better have a more civil tongue in that mouth.”

Spike stood up, and walked to the end of the bed, Dean’s wary gaze on him. “You forgot to threaten to rip my tongue out,” Dean said.

“I don’t make idle threats, pet. If I make a threat, I follow through. Since I happen to think you’re one of the good ones, I wouldn’t rip out your tongue, so I won’t make the threat. However, keep talking like that, and I will make you sorry you were born,” Spike looked Dean up and down and slowly smiled, and Xander felt a cold shiver go up his spine.

“Spike?” Xander asked softly, almost afraid to interrupt the tension humming through the air.

Spike gave a sniff and turned toward Benny. “Human blood is best to sate a blind hunger like this, but any blood of a mammal will work in a pinch. Does he normally drink animal?"

It took Dean a long time to answer. "Normally he drinks animal blood out of bags, but he’s raided a few hospitals when he had a serious injury. He thinks I don’t know, though."

Spike nodded. "He needs human then, at least some of the time. But if he's settled, he can't afford to take too much from a hospital. Some hunter would notice.”

That edge of smirk returned to Dean’s expression. “Hunters usually look for people turning up dead, not blood going missing from a hospital.”

“Right, and all hunters are morally upstanding human beings who never target harmless creatures or vampires who've given up feeding,” Spike said with just as much sarcasm. Xander felt an uncomfortable shifting in his stomach, a hard-to-identify discomfort with this back and forth sniping. He didn’t exactly worry that Spike would kill Dean, but there was an undercurrent of unhappy that Spike would do something. Xander just didn’t know what the something was that he was fearing.

“We can argue about that later,” Xander said, focusing on the room and the hungry vampire rather than his own tangled knot of troubled emotions. “Right now, you need to help Benny.”

Spike kept his gaze on Dean. “We could turn him loose. He'd have a blood donor all tied up and ready.”

“Spike," Xander warned darkly.

He sighed. "Don't get your knickers in a twist, luv. You keep an eye on that one. I'll go try and find some blood. Do not try feeding him.” Spike poked a finger in Xander’s general direction on that last order.

“Spike, I don't want to be within six feet of him. That makes feeding him a little hard.”

“Keep it that way." Spike gave them a last look before heading for the door. When the door slammed, Benny snarled and started to push himself out of the corner.

"Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no." Xander made eye contact with Benny. Panicked and unwilling eye contact, but that was enough to drove Benny back to his corner.

Dean squirmed around until he could swing his legs off the bed and awkwardly sit up. "Okay, untie me quick."

“Are you crazy?”

“That's debatable. Now untie me before you cranky friend comes back”

“Um... NO!”

A look of perfect frustration darted across Dean’s face. “Look. Benny is not your problem. Untie me and help me get him to the car, and I'll even forgive you for denting in the side of my precious.”

“Precious?”

“It's the most reasonable solution,” Dean went on.

“How are you defining reasonable?” Xander held up his hand to stop Dean from answering. "Nevermind. I've read the books, so can I just say that your definition is a little less definitional than it is completely and entirely obsessive? Reasonable does not mean you have to do everything yourself. We’re waiting for Spike to get back with blood. And maybe help.”

“Don't pretend that you know me just because you've read those books. God I hate those things. If I had known what Chuck was doing before he put that first book out, I would have shoved him into a really small barrel and sent him over Niagara Falls.” Dean dropped his head back down to the pillow and stared at the ceiling.

“Don't assume that I don't get it. Hey, I was the all-human sidekick of my demon hunting crew. No magic, no slayer strength, no anything but too damn much stubbornness to die when I should have. So don't assume I don't know what it's like.”

“Right. You're just like me. Blah, blah, blah.” Dean rolled his eyes and then shifted onto his shoulder so that he gave Xander a nice view of his back. Xander wasn’t fooled. He figured Dean was coming up with a million ways to escape using hotel sheets. However, this situation was so far out of control that Xander wasn’t sure how to fix any of it. He’d just wanted to meet Sam and Dean—to give them some help to get out of the hole they seemed to live in. Yeah, he’d done a great job. With Dean tied up on the bed nearest the bathroom and Benny cringing in the corner under the air conditioner, Xander settled himself in a chair next to the door and prepared to wait. A fun time was not had by all. Xander figured if Spike didn’t hurry, the hatred in the room was going to reach critical mass and spontaneously explode.


	36. Don't count Lizzy out

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Xander said as the ghosts around Dean revealed his thoughts. He was definitely thinking about ways to get his legs around Xander's neck and then strangle him to death.

"Right. So you're mind-reading guy now."

"Mind reading is actually the first power that showed up, although I thought I was seeing freaky ghosts. And actually, I still do kind of see ghosts."

"Kind of ghosts?" Dean rolled and sat up.

"Are we playing nice now?"

He shrugged. "It's better than being bored."

Xander doubted that. He was pretty sure that Dean was still trying to come up with ways to kill him.

"So, how do you see a 'kind of' ghost?"

For a few seconds, Xander mentally debated the wisdom of talking to Dean. He’d read the books, so he knew that talking generally came right before the monster of the week ended up dying. Since he was now a monster, that worried Xander a bit. Dean raised his eyebrows, though, and Xander felt like an idiot for just sitting there, so he said, "Spike said that some objects are so important to a person that they end up leaving an impression of themselves that sort of clings to the object itself."

"Like a curse," Dean said. Benny growled from his corner.

"Knock it off,” Xander ordered before he turned back to Dean. The man went perfectly still. Yeah, he was trying something. Hopefully Spike got back before Dean got loose or Xander was going to have to fight him again, and that hadn’t gone all that well last time. Xander really didn’t want to accidentally break the man. “Most of the time, it's more like a good luck charm."

"Ghost are never good luck. Trust me."

"Boy don't I know. Who knew that a healthy teenage desire for sex could get so ugly so fast?" Xander really didn’t like the thought of Buffy and Riley sex, but the thought of ghosts making them boff over and over was really awkward. "But it isn't really a ghost, more like the object develops a memory of the person who loved it."

Dean studied him. "So you see good luck charms that don’t have any power? Well that's a worthless gift." Dean seemed pleased by that… either that or he was really enjoying insulting Xander, not that Xander took offense.

"Slightly," Xander agreed, "but then I have the regular mind reading and healing and now apparently I can do the whole blast wave."

"I noticed.” Dean looked over toward the corner. “Benny noticed more."

Xander’s guilt made a reappearance. "Spike's going to get him blood. Honest. Do your vamps die if they get hungry enough?"

"They're already dead, genius."

"Fine. Do they get deader, dust, turn to bones... Whatever your vamps do, can they do if from hunger?" Xander held his breath as he waited for the answer.

A flicker of doubt crossed Dean's face and he squirmed around until he could sit up with the headboard at his back. "I don't know."

"You don't... But… Really?"

The doubt vanished under liberal amounts of eye rolling. "Until recently, I wasn't all that interested in the feeding habits of vampires except where affected my ability to kill them quickly. Starvation isn't quick."

"That's true. Someone tried to starve Angel, and months later, he was still alive. Crazy, but alive. But you seriously don’t know if Benny can die from lack of blood?”

“Why would I?”

“Because he’s your friend?”

Xander watched emotions flicker across Dean’s face. He really hadn’t meant to pry, but the ghosts rose up, and Xander could see Dean turning to Benny over and over—covering his back when they were in purgatory—trusting Benny to have his back. He watched as Benny and some other guy who wasn’t human sniped at each other, and Dean stepped between them. Xander could tell just from the way they moved closer together that the emotions had run deep, but Dean didn’t even know the first thing about what Benny needed.

True, Xander hadn’t know how much blood Spike needed, and right after he was chipped there was some small miscalculation that led to accidental torture by starvation, but Xander hadn’t been Spike’s friend then, and Giles had been even less friendlike than Xander. Dean was supposed to be Benny friend.

“He can’t help being a vampire,” Xander pointed out softly.

That earned him the grand-daddy of all dirty looks. “I had noticed. The fangs are a dead giveaway.”

Xander opened his mouth to say something nasty—as soon as he could think of it—but he stopped himself. He didn’t want to fight with Dean. Okay, he did, but it probably wasn’t a good idea, even if Xander was starting to get a little frustrated with the man. Dean scooted around like he was trying to get settled, but Xander had pulled that move way too often to be fooled. He was working a hand free. Xander probably should have tied Dean tighter, only he didn’t want to hurt him. Xander was becoming more and more aware of how fragile humans were. When Buffy had fallen for Spike, Xander had been more than a little disturbed, but now he was starting to get it.

The idea of having sex with a human felt a little like trying to have sex with glass—they were too breakable. Maybe that’s how Buffy had felt—like humans were breakable and she needed someone like Spike who wouldn’t shatter into pieces.

The hotel door came open so fast that Xander nearly fell on his ass as he scrambled off the chair. Spike stood in the doorway giving him a strange look.

“Hey, you’re back. And not alone.” Xander looked at Elizabeth who was carrying a cooler.

Elizabeth shoved the cooler at him and tried to go straight for Benny. Spike caught her arm, stopping her before she turned into a vamp meal. “Keep clear of him,” he ordered and Benny pushed himself up to his feet and snarled with all his fangs showing. That was a little creepy.

Elizabeth sucked in a quick breath, but she wasn’t running for the hills. “What happened to him?”

“Hunger,” Spike said without much sympathy. He gave her a small shove back toward the wall, and she glared at him. Yeah, she was made of the same stuff Joyce had been because her first reaction was to glare at him. Luckily Spike was immune. Xander, on the other hand, felt worse than ever. Elizabeth’s obvious horror made him feel about two inches tall.

“That’s hunger?” she demanded, and it was pretty clear she suspected they’d tortured Benny.

Spike pulled a bag of blood out of the cooler and ripped off the end before pouring the thick blood out into a plastic glass. “When you’re a vampire and you’re hungry enough, that’s what it looks like,” Spike explained. He went into gameface and growled at Benny before stepping closer. It was like watching pit bulls circling each other, but eventually Benny dropped his gaze. The fact he was chained up probably made it a little easier for him to admit he was not winning any fight with another vampire.

“I got vamped for a while. It was hard to not… you know…” Dean made a face.

“Eat people?” Xander supplied.

Dean rolled his eyes. “Yeah, that. But I was never that bad. Even when I’d never had a drop of blood and I was starving, it wasn’t that hard to keep control.” Dean watched, wrinkling his nose as Spike finally got close enough to tilt the glass up for Benny to drink. He slurped at the blood noisily.

“You never had a big lummox knock you arse over teakettle,” Spike said, his voice artificially calm.

“What?” Elizabeth turned her glare on Xander and Dean, moving her focus from one to the other as she tried to figure out which lummox had knocked him out.

Xander confessed, “I hit them with some sort of blast by accident because they were fighting, and I was not okay with them killing each other. And I already apologized.”

Dean snorted. “You dented my car, so keep apologizing until I tell you to stop.”

“I’m more interested in Benny than your car.” Elizabeth’s dry tone made Dean start to blush. Xander felt for him, because moments of unintentional dorkitude were pretty damn embarrassing. However, he wasn’t about to attract Elizabeth’s attention.

“Why do you have Dean tied up?” And that was Elizabeth’s attention turning to Xander in all its motherly, pissy glory.

“Good question. I’ve been asking that myself,” Dean said smugly.

Spike backed away from Benny and grabbed another bag of blood to refill the empty glass. “Mostly because he’s a prat,” Spike offered. “Bloody hell, all we do is offer to help find some backup, and he acts like we’re public enemy number one.”

“Which you might be,” Dean said. “You’re bad guys.”

“I thought you were the one who’d been a vampire once,” Spike pointed out. “I know you’ve been to hell, and you seem to be chums with another vampire, not that being your friend is exactly healthy. So if you’re looking for the moral high ground, I’m thinking most hunters would be happy enough to gut you. True?” Spike offered up one of his truly nasty smiles, and Dean’s face had lost every bit of emotion. He’d locked it all behind his cold mask that did nothing to hide his homicidal urges.

“Is that normal?” Elizabeth asked, and Xander looked over to see Benny blinking and leaning against the wall like he might fall down.

“I think he’s trying to figure out where he is,” Spike said. He moved in with the second glass of blood, and again Benny growled. They repeated their little dominance ritual.

“And again, I’m really sorry,” Xander offered. Elizabeth didn’t even glance his way. “But in my defense, these two idiots were trying to kill us at the time. I was trying to stop bloodshed.”

Elizabeth slowly turned until she was looking at him—really looking. “They were doing what?”

“If someone tries to kill me, I tend to get cranky,” Dean hurried to defend himself.

Now Elizabeth just looked confused. “You tried to kill Dean?”

“Oi! Did not,” Spike said. “If I’d tried to kill him, he’d be bloody dead. I’m old enough to know how to finish a job.”

“Spike, not helping. In fact, you’re all kinds of unhelpful.”

Dean grinned. “Yeah, Spike, you’re unhelpful.”

“The man who’s tied up doesn’t get to say shite to me.” Spike pointed a finger, and Xander could almost taste Dean’s need to attack—to get free and prove that Spike couldn’t talk to him like that.

“Then I won’t say ‘shite,’ but you’re still an asshole.” Dean grinned.

A sharp whistle cut through the air, and the bickering all fell silent. Elizabeth lowered the hand she’d used to make the obnoxious sound. “Okay, I don’t care who tried to do what. There will be no killing. Right now, all I care about is whether Benny is okay. Everything else can wait.” She gave Spike an expectant look, and Xander wasn’t even a little surprised that Spike caved almost immediately.

“He’ll be fine, mum. He’s going to need more blood, and it would help if you did what we talked about.”

“What you talked about?” Dean pushed himself to his feet and rocked a little unsteadily on his bound feet.

“If it will help, that’s fine.” She took out a knife, and Dean started shaking his head.

“No, Elizabeth, whatever you’re going to do, don’t.”

“I’m giving him some blood. Fresh blood.”

Dean pulled on his restraints. “Don’t.”

Elizabeth hesitated. “Why?” She looked over toward Spike, but he shrugged.

“Blood’s blood. Fresher is better, but there’s no harm done by sharing.”

“There’s…” Dean grimaced. “There’s a closeness to sharing, Elizabeth. If you share, then for a time, he’s going to be able to feel you—tell where you are.”

“Whoa. Okay, that’s not in Giles’ books.” Xander definitely would have heard about it if there were. After all, Angel had taken some of Buffy’s blood and some of Willows, and Spike had tasted him and Buffy and Willow and probably Tara during that whole time when Buffy was in heaven, and then Dracula had tasted him and Buffy, and actually, a whole lot of vampires had tasted them.

“Is that true?” Elizabeth asked Spike, and Xander could see Dean’s frustration ready to boil over.

“Might be,” Spike admitted. “He’s a different sort of vampire than me. If it bothers you, you might want to skip sharing any fresh blood with him and just use the bagged.”

She turned to Dean. “He can feel me? Like where I am?”

“Yeah,” Dean said. “And it’s… it’s just a pretty intimate thing to do with a guy, you know?”

Elizabeth shrugged. “He’s the best man I’ve met in a long time, and apparently he’s my great grandfather or something. I’m not going to let him go without.” Without a pause, she drew the knife across the flat of her hand. Spike cursed and moved inhumanly fast to get the cup under the bleeding cut. “Sorry. I was making a point,” she said.

Spike didn’t answer, but Dean gave a huge sigh and sat back down on the bed.

Xander moved to the other bed and sat on the end. “You can stop pretending that your hands are tied.”

Dean narrowed his eyes and stared at Xander.

Spike gave a rough laugh. “You never could tie a knot, pet. Every time you tried tying me to that god-awful chair of yours, I had to work to avoid calling you an idiot,” Spike said. He poured more bagged blood in on top of Elizabeth’s donation. She looked confused.

“We were enemies at the time,” Xander explained. “That was back when Spike was still being the big-bad and I was one of the good guys. And now we’re both good guys, but because of the not-human parts, we both get shoved into the monster box a little too much.”

Elizabeth pressed a towel to her cut hand. “Did you ask to be monsters?”

“Hell no,” Xander said firmly. He watched as Dean tossed the rope off to one side and went to work untying his feet.

“I don’t think anyone chooses to be a monster, not even when they’re technically given a choice,” Dean pointed out, “but that doesn’t mean that they get a free pass when they start killing.” He looked up at Elizabeth. “I told Benny that even if I thought of him as a friend, I’d put him down if I found out he was killing again. When I came here, I was prepared to do just that.”

“But you weren’t prepared to tell me the truth about a potential danger in my own café,” she said. Dean blushed and let his gaze drop down to the floor for a second. However, embarrassment didn’t keep him down as long as it did with Xander.

“I do what I have to,” Dean said firmly. “I don’t apologize for that.”

“I understand having to protect people, and maybe I even understand that you felt like you had to make sure Benny wasn’t killing, even if it meant killing him. Maybe,” Elizabeth repeated, making it pretty damn clear she didn’t like the idea. “But if you think that lying to everyone you meet is just what you have to do, you have a funny understanding about how the world works.”

“Oh, I know how the world works,” Dean said, and he sounded bitter.

Elizabeth frowned but she didn’t say anything. A weak voice from the corner called, “Lizzy?”

Looking over, Xander found Benny rubbing a hand over his face as he looked around in confusion.


	37. A new path

Benny wrapped his fingers around the cup that Spike offered him. “Thanks, brother,” he said softly.

Spike nodded and headed back over to lean against the wall near the bathroom. Xander shifted nervously on the bed. Dean and Benny were between him and the door, and that shouldn’t make him nervous because Elizabeth looked ready to verbally rip into both of them. Still, he had an itching sense of unease.

“You think these government people would help Dean and his brother?” Elizabeth asked.

Dean’s body stiffened a tiny bit more.

“Cher,” Benny said softly, “it’s Dean’s choice.”

Elizabeth looked at Dean. “Explain why you have to carry this all on your own. Even a soldier would have teammates, health benefits, time off.” Her voice rose in frustration.

“The government have not been our friends,” Dean said tightly. “The last time I got too near a government agent, he tried to arrest me for murder.”

“Had you killed someone?” Elizabeth asked. Dean’s head snapped up, but she was looking at him without any judgment showing in her face. Xander had to give her credit because she was handing this pretty good. Most people freaked. Maybe she’d needed a little time to get herself together after he and Spike had pulled Martin out of her café, but overall, she was a rock.

“No one human,” Dean said sharply.

“Did you need to kill them?”

“Unless you wanted them to kill more innocent people, yeah.” Dean planted his hands on his thighs and bent his arms so his elbows stuck out aggressively.

“Lizzy,” Benny said softly.

Elizabeth nodded. “Then you did what you had to do, but if these people know about monsters that go around feeding on humans, then wouldn’t they know the difference between killing a monster and murdering a person?”

“You’d think, but not so much,” Dean said.

“This particular group has the weird part down pat,” Xander added. “They actually thought monsters were less of a problem than…” Xander stopped. He really didn’t think Dean needed to know about the whole intergalactic war. This universe sucked. Seriously sucked. It was like the whole universe had pissed off God and he’d decided to take a crap on its head.

“They’ll be fine with you hunting,” Spike said, rescuing Xander from his own mouth.

“Right, and I have your word for that.” Dean snorted.

Spike pushed off from the wall. “You’re right, you do. My boy would throw a wobbly if you got locked up, so I wouldn’t do anything to put you in that position. Hell, he’d pitch a fit until I rescued you if you did land in a jail cell.”

“Pretty much,” Xander agreed. “Whining and nagging would be had by all.”

“Nagging?” Elizabeth frowned. “But I thought you were the one who knocked all three of them out.”

Spike looked down at him fondly. Demons were just weirdly fond of getting their asses kicked, as long as their side won in the end. “He did. He’s a powerful bugger, even if he is like a bull in a china shop.”

“So, you have to help him keep this power under control because he’s younger?” Elizabeth pulled a leg up under her and studied them.

“That and he has the common sense of an inbred chicken.”

Xander shrugged. “I would protest, only I’m pretty sure that’s true,” he admitted.

“Maybe we should get you a keeper,” Benny said as he looked over at Dean and grinned. Dean raised a middle finger.

Benny’s expression turned more calculating as he studied Xander and Spike. “So, you’re strong enough to control him if he does something?” he asked Spike.

Spike laughed. “The boy has more power in one hand than the rest of us put together.”

Elizabeth gasped. “But then how do you—”

“It’s not about the power, luv. It’s about how firm you can stand,” Spike said firmly. “Before I got the soul back, I wanted to take out a powerful demon hunter. But her mum stopped me. A human with perfectly average strength got in the way, and I wouldn’t have gone after that lady if someone paid me. She had a spine of steel, and it didn’t matter that I was physically stronger.”

Xander sighed as his heart ached with loss. “I miss Joyce.”

“World was better with her in it,” Spike agreed.

Xander smiled as he remembered her calm expression when Buffy would get all flustered and flappy. “When Buffy found out that you were having tea with her mom, she was ready to hunt you down with Mr. Pointy. She was raving. Considering that you were chipped and couldn’t defend yourself, that would have been bad.”

Spike rolled his eyes. “That didn’t worry me none. If Buffy had tried it, Joyce would have clipped her wings before she got two steps in the door. That lady had brass.” Spike pursed his lips for a second.

“Classy brass.” Xander agreed. “No offense, but she scared me more than you, even when you were evil.”

“No offense taken, luv.”

“She scared me more than Angelus.”

“I would bloody hope so,” Spike said with a huff of laughter. “Ponce.”

Xander pulled a knee up and rested his chin on it. “When Angelus came to the hospital to kill Buffy, I kept thinking that if I didn’t win—if Angelus got into Buffy’s room—I was going to have to look Joyce in the eye and admit that I’d failed her daughter. I was way more scared of that than I was of having Angelus rip my throat out.” He fell silent, and Spike came over and rested a hand on his shoulder. If Giles had been the disapproving and slightly distant father to their group, Joyce had always been the mother holding them together. Disappointing Joyce was not an option. Ever. Xander didn’t know if it was college or Joyce’s death that had set them drifting apart.

“She sounds like she was an amazing woman,” Elizabeth said in a respectfully soft voice.

“She sounds like you, Lizzy,” Benny said.

“Me?” She laughed as she shook her head. “Oh no.”

Benny was nodding, though. “You knew what I was, and you still dressed me down for not telling you. I don’t think I’ve gotten told off that firmly since dying.”

Elizabeth crossed her arms. “Because you needed telling off. I had a right to know.”

“I’m not saying you didn’t, cher.” Benny held up his hands in surrender.

“Yesterday you were saying exactly that.”

“Well I’m not fool enough to say it again.”

Dean snorted.

Elizabeth turned on him, her gaze pinning him against the wall where he was leaning. “And you. You came in my restaurant and ate my food and never opened your mouth.”

“I didn’t—” Dean started, but Elizabeth cut him off.

“And you were going to kill Benny.”

“I never thought he was killing.” Dean cringed. “Not really. I was trying to protect him.”

“He was, cher,” Benny agreed.

Elizabeth looked at both of them. “Don’t give me that kicked puppy look. Both of you knew someone was killing, and you didn’t say a word. Men.” She huffed her disgust with both of them, and Xander found a nice spot on the floor to study.

“Now, cher, don’t go blaming him.”

Dean sighed, “When you start telling people about monsters under the bed and vampires, the loony bin is not far behind. Look at Martin. They put him in an asylum.”

“Because he’s crazy,” Elizabeth said, her voice flat. Xander could feel the danger making the air spark, and for once, he wasn’t in the middle of the potential shit storm.

“Just nod and agree, mate,” Spike advised Dean. “You’re not winning this one.”

“Don’t start.” Elizabeth poked a finger in Spike’s direction, but then she turned her attention right back to Dean. “If you had some help, you wouldn’t have to try and figure this out. If an Air Force officer came in and said that they had a dangerous soldier go AWOL, I would have locked up the café or invited him to leave as many soldiers as he wanted, and I would feed them gumbo and poboys until I knew they’d caught the guy.”

“She’s got a point, brother,” Benny said. Dean glared at him. “But it’s your life. I’ll just be sitting here and trying to recover from whatever this one threw at me,” he added.

“Sorry,” Xander offered again. He was very close to breaking his own personal record for apologizing. Between the hyena incident and the whole love spell gone wrong, that was a pretty high number to reach. Spike tightened his hold on Xander’s shoulder, either in sympathy or as a silent order to stop apologizing. Xander would probably be able to figure out which one if he used the ghosts, but there were too many people in the room now. He didn’t need any more getting in the middle.

“I’m not saying you should trust them,” Elizabeth said, with a gesture toward Spike and Xander. “I’m saying you should look at the offer and talk to these people. Clearly they already know about you, so what harm is there in meeting them?”

Dean made a strange face. “You have no idea how many horrible things have happened right about the time someone said that,” Dean said. “The answer is usually plenty, whole worlds of harm, even. In a porn movie, when the doorbell rings, you know that delivery man is about to get lucky, and in real life, when someone says it couldn’t hurt to try, you’re about to find out exactly how much it can hurt.”

“Your view of the world scares me,” Elizabeth told him.

“Yeah, me too,” Dean agreed.

“If you don’t talk to them, are they going to give up and go away?” Elizabeth asked. “If this Willow person has already confirmed that those books about you that you hate are all real, are they going to walk away?”

Dean pressed his lips together.

“It isn’t if you talk to them, but when. At least, that’s what it sounds like to me.” Elizabeth looked over toward Benny. “Am I missing something here?”

“I’m staying out of this,” he said before busying himself with drinking the last lingering drops of blood out of an empty cup.

“Do you think you can avoid them forever?”

Dean offered a curt, “Yes.”

“Then you’re an idiot. This is the Air Force we’re talking about. You’re not so high and mighty that you can go up against the entire Air Force and win.”

“I went up against Michael and Lucifer and won,” Dean said smugly.

For a long time, Elizabeth looked at him and Benny looked everywhere other than the two of them, and Xander tried very hard to breathe in and out and avoid seeing any ghost thoughts. He figured he’d need therapy if he peeked at the inner thoughts of these two right now.

“What price did you pay for that?” she asked softly.

Dean lost most of the color out of his face. They all sat in the world’s most awkward silence, and Xander was ready to crack and beg Dean to make the call. He knew Elizabeth wasn’t going to budge. He didn’t need mind-reading to see cold determination written all over her face. Seconds drew out into minutes, and Xander was physically squirming before Dean finally slapped his hand down on the motel wall. “Fine!” he snapped. “I’ll call. What’s the number?” Dean stomped over to the hotel phone and snatched it up before looking over.

“Um…” Xander stared back. Number. Right.

Spike rattled off a series of numbers. When Xander looked up in confusion, Spike shrugged. “Number was listed on every phone in the place, pet. Pay attention and you might notice things like that.”

“Oh. Yeah.”

Dean finished dialing and punched the button for the speakerphone before sitting on the bed next to Elizabeth. She actually managed to look pleased without looking smug, which was a skill Dean hadn’t mastered yet. The phone rang twice before a man picked up the other end with a polite but anonymous, “Hello.”

“I wanted to talk to General O’Neill.” Dean glared at Elizabeth as he said it.

There was a brief pause on the other end before the man answered in that same bland tone of voice, “I’m not sure if there’s anyone on base by that name.”

“Really? That’s your best line?” Dean made a pfft noise. “You need to work on the lies.”

“I can check, sir, but I cannot say whether or not that person is available.”

“Better. That was almost not stupid.” Dean had this weird condescending congratulatory voice, and Xander was starting to wonder if Dean made a practice out of annoying everyone.

“Can I say who’s calling?”

“Dean Winchester.” Dean flashed Xander an overly sweet smile. “Spike and Xander tracked me down and suggested that I might want to give him a call.” Xander could hear the low growl coming from a very unhappy Spike. If the military was looking to recapture them, Dean had just made it a little easier. Xander wished he could say he was surprised.

“Let me check the directories and try and find a General O’Neill,” the voice said. Dean rolled his eyes as he made a production out of putting his hand over the speaker’s mic. “Seriously, these guys suck on the secret identity front.” He just made sure to say it loudly, so Xander figured the guy on the other end of the phone heard it. The musak started after Dean's comment. They listened to tinny jazz for a time before the hold music vanished.

There was a click and a new voice answered. “Hello?”

“General O’Neill?”

“Who is this?”

“Dean Winchester.”

“Riiight. Okay,” O’Neill said slowly, and that was definitely a voice Xander recognized. “And who else is on the line?”

Xander knew that Spike would want to go for silent retreat. He knew it, but he couldn’t do it. He had to know one thing. “Hi General O’Neill. Is Dorsey okay?” Xander blurted out. He felt a twist of worry just saying Dorsey’s name.

“Harris.” O’Neill sighed.

Dean laughed. “He likes you as much as I do.”

“I’m very likable,” Xander said firmly.

“Likable like the plague,” O’Neill said. “You made Dorsey’s life a little too interesting.”

“Yeah, about that. I’m really sorry. I didn’t exactly know what I was doing.”

“You accidentally turned him into a slayer?”

“A what?” Xander’s voice squeaked. Dean gave him an odd look, but Xander was definitely too distracted to care. “What did you call Dorsey?”

O’Neill laughed. “The name annoys Giles, too. I think that’s why it stuck. Annoying Giles is oddly satisfying. Back to the main point here, you turned one of my soldiers into an alien life form. You’re not high on my Christmas card list right now.”

“Cut this short, pet.” Spike ordered. He walked over to the dresser and started shoving the last of their things into a bag.

“He’s on the other side of the country, oh paranoid one,” Xander pointed out.

“And he has a bloody phone to call someone local. Hurry this up.”

“Oh.” Xander was definitely not firing on all cylinders. “Is Dorsey okay?”

“Other than passing out every once in a while, sure.” O’Neill sounded weirdly casual about it, but Xander couldn’t read minds through the phone, and to be honest, O’Neill always sounded weirdly casual. He was not what Xander expected of a military officer.

“Passing out?” Xander swallowed. That didn’t sound good.

Spike paused in his packing. “The moron is trying ta make due with human food, isn’t he?”

There was a long pause. “What other choice would there be?” O’Neill asked.

“Energy,” Spike said. “Xander absorbs it straight from any life force, although generally we make sure he uses cows so that if he takes too much he doesn’t start brooding.”

“That would explain a few things,” O’Neill said, and from the tone of voice, he definitely wasn’t telling the whole truth. “I’ll have Rosenberg work with him on that. She’s pretty good at kicking his ass.”

“But he’s okay other than that?” Xander asked. Now that he knew Dorsey was having trouble, he could feel his stomach start to churn with worry.

O’Neill sighed. “He’s fine. He’s actually pretty handy to have around. Mind reading slayers make life difficult for the NID, and I approve of anything that annoys the NID. The fact he annoys Giles is a bonus.”

The knots in Xander’s stomach unknotted just a little. Spike was looking at him oddly, but Xander could only shrug.

“Should we talk about you breaking out of my base?”

“No,” Spike said sharply.

“Subtle,” O’Neill said. “So, Winchester. How much of those books are true and how much of it came out of someone’s rather twisted imagination.”

“Shit. Please tell me you didn’t read the crap online.” Dean was suddenly blushing. Xander glanced over at Spike, but he just shrugged. Clearly he didn’t know what that meant, either.

“Oh yeah. Every bit of it.” O’Neill sounded way too cheerful. “I made my linguist read a bunch of it too, at least until he retaliated by putting Egyptian porn in my conference room. So, that’s a ‘no’ to the online stuff… how about the published books?”

“They’re true,” Dean said, his voice curt enough to make it clear he didn’t plan on saying much more.

“Then we’d like to offer some support. We’re the government. We’re pretty good at blowing things up if you’re around to point out which thing needs the C4 attached to it.”

“You’re offering…” Dean stopped. “I’m not actually sure what you’re offering.”

“To talk,” O’Neill said. “With you and your brother.”

Dean’s gaze fell to the floor for a second, and Xander watched as dozens of little Sam Winchesters blinked into existence. Sam with floppy hair trying to load a gun while Dean helped, tiny Sam sitting under a Christmas tree while Dean read a book to him, middle school Sam crying with Dean on the phone looking mad as hell. Dozens of Sam and Deans crowded into the room on all sides. Sam reaching for Dean—Sam shot with blood seeping through his fingers—Sam falling into hell. The weight of them almost overwhelmed Xander, and they weren’t even his memories. He took a breath and worked to scatter the ghosts back into atoms. Dean was a really loud thinker.

“Sam might be a little pissed right now. He will probably take some time to show up again.”

There was another long pause on the phone, but Xander thought he heard something scratching across paper. Finally O’Neill answered, “Then we start with you and me having a face to face.”

“I suppose I have to come out there,” Dean said.

“I don’t know. Do they have good fishing in that part of Louisiana?”

“Hell if I know. I was more focused on the vampire, but it’s dead. Now they just have two pains in the ass who have a strange way of offering help.” Dean looked at them.

“Hey, if it was up to me, I’d shove them in a cell, but now that we made a policy exception for slayers, there’s all this paperwork, and I really don’t like paperwork. So as long as they stay clear of me, I’m going to pretend they don’t exist. So, the nearest base is Barksdale over near Shreveport. I can be there tomorrow by noon. I can leave your name at the gate or we can meet on neutral ground.”

“Base is fine,” Dean said. That shocked Xander. Something was not adding up, and Xander was really hoping that Dean didn’t plan to blow up O’Neill or something.

“Okay, then I’ll see you tomorrow. Try to ditch those two trouble-makers. And Harris, Rosenberg says hi. She also says that if you ever hurt Dorsey again, she’s going to use her impressive knowledge of science to dissolve your body into unrecognizable chunks and flush you down a toilet.”

“Oh. Um, okay.” Xander cringed.

“I’m sure she’s joking,” O’Neill said. "Pretty sure, at least."

“Doubt it,” Spike was quick to offer.

Dean turned and started toward the door. “Hey,” Xander called after him. “Aren’t you going to stay and talk to O’Neill?”

“Why?” Dean shrugged. “I’ll see him tomorrow.” With that, he walked out the door.

“And on that note, I don’t actually like you two well enough to keep this conversation going.” There was a click, and O’Neill was gone.

“That was rude,” Xander said quietly.

Spike snorted before he reached across the bed and hit the button to turn the phone off. “You have three minutes to grab what you need, pet,” Spike said before he turned back to his own packing. That was his ‘I’m not hurrying, but I’m getting out of here fast’ mode, so Xander figured he had very little time to really do much before Spike hustled him away. He glanced toward Spike and then toward the door before he made up his mind and trotted after Dean.

Out in the muggy night, Dean was a dark mass leaning against car. Xander headed that way, guilt gnawing at him when he saw the size of the damage on the side door.

“I’m really sorry about that,” Xander said, gesturing toward the damage.

Dean shrugged as he looked at it. “She’s been beat up worse.”

“I’m sorry about the car size bruises you probably have too.”

“I’ve been beat up way worse.”

Xander shifted his weight as he tried to figure out how to say something more meaningful than nice night. That wasn’t going to cut it. Dean turned and leaned his forearms on the top of his car as he looked over it. “Are you just here to annoy me or do you want something?”

Letting out a breath, Xander sat down on one of the low concrete blocks that were supposed to keep cars from running into each other in the parking lot. Spike usually just drove over them. “Seeing thoughts is not as much fun as I thought it would be.”

Dean moved so he was standing near the car’s hood. “Either you’re complaining and I don’t care or you’re trying to lead up to something, and oddly enough, I still don’t care.”

“You’re tired,” Xander blurted out.

That made Dean laugh. He laughed so hard he slapped his palm against the hood. “Really? That’s your big revelation? No wonder you need a keeper.”

“You like taking care of everyone, but not everyone needs taking care of,” Xander said softly. Dean froze.

“I mean,” Xander hurried when it seemed like ice was forming in the air between them, “I tried to take care of Buffy. Over and over again, I tried to take care of her, and sometimes I ended up being helpful and sometimes I got in the way, but she’s not the sort of person you can take care of. She’s more the run in, kick, quip, and run out again sort. She doesn’t need me and she’s not really the sort to want to take care of me, which is fine. I don’t really need taking care of. Much.”

“Have you considered investing in a therapist?” Dean asked dryly.

“Benny needs to take care of someone, and I’m pretty sure he needs someone to take care of him. And I’m that way too.”

“Are you looking for permission to court Benny? Are you looking to go a’wooing?” Dean crossed his arms.

“Not so much. Spike would break him into little pieces,” Xander pointed out. “Because Spike needs someone to take care of, and sometimes I think he needs someone to take care of him, but mostly I think he needs someone to take care of, which is good because I actually do a lot of stupid things. I’m not used to having powers, so normally when I stumble through a situation, the only person in danger is me. Now I screw up and people are thrown around like rag dolls.”

“I noticed.”

“You want to take care of Sam,” Xander said softly.

“Do not go there.” Dean’s voice had turned into something colder and deadlier.

“But in the books, he was happiest when he was on his own, which is not about him not loving you but might be about him not being someone who needs being taken care of.”

Dean was coming around the car, long strides covering the ground faster than Xander expected. He scrambled to his feet, but then Dean was there, fists tangled in Xander’s shirt as he shoved Xander back and back and back until Xander hit some car. “Stay out of my life,” Dean growled. Xander had a lot of experience with getting growled at, and that was a growl.

“I’m the messenger here, not the person making all the bad happen.”

Dean gave him a wicked grin. “Well I’m oddly okay with killing the messenger.”

“Then you’d better get used to the fact that the bad is going to keep coming. It’s never stopping, and the more you try to make things right, the more wrong they’re going to get until you hate yourself and everyone around you.” The words slipped free unedited, and Xander could see them hit Dean with a force that made him physically step back. “We tried so hard to make everything right, and even after Willow went a little crazy and a little evil, we didn’t get it.” Xander pushed away from the car, and now Dean was the one backing up. “We can’t fix things. We can’t. We aren’t all powerful, and it’s like opening a car engine and promising yourself that you’ll only do a little tinkering, only the more you tinker the worse things run, and then you break the car.”

“I can fix a fucking car,” Dean pointed out. For a half second, he stopped retreating and held his ground.

“You can’t fix Sam,” Xander said. Again, Dean retreated a step. “He isn’t someone who wants fixing. He’s more a leave me along and let me heal sort, which is very Giles, and I don’t get it because I’m more a cling to people sort of person myself.”

“Fuck off.” Dean turned and headed for his driver side door.

“You can’t fix Sam or Castiel or the world, and the more you try, the more you’re going to break things because you don’t know how. And I know because I broke almost everything important in my life. I lost everything, and now I’m down to the one person who could never stand me, and yeah, I’m figuring out that we like each other more than I thought, but every relationship I have is teetering on disaster and we almost turned my world over the ultimate evil because we couldn’t get our hands out from under the hood. Don’t do that.” Xander put every bit of himself he could behind those words. Dean might not know him, but after reading all those books, Xander knew him. Xander had cried for Dean, had actually started out kind of not liking Dean and then had somehow gotten sucked into loving the shit out of him. Xander ached for the raw need that he had read about and now he could feel that same pain. He wanted to help, but he didn’t know how to fix Dean any more than he’d known how to fix his own broken life.

Dean hesitated at the door of his car, and Xander threw one more volley of words. “Castiel wants to fix things. You’ve seen him, haven’t you? I can read your thoughts, and you know he’s making things worse and worse the more he tries to fix them, and you’re the same only with a lot less power.”

Dean’s expression twisted into ugly shapes.

“You know it, but Benny needs you and that woman you keep thinking about, the one with the kid, she wants to take care of you, and there are… I don’t know… lots of others.”

“But not Sam?” Dean asked, anger making his voice shake.

“He’s not like us.”

Dean pressed his lips together, but without a word, he got in the car and started it up with a roar. Xander watched, uneasy as Dean sent gravel flying with a dangerously fast turn.

“You did your best, luv.” Spike’s arms wrapped around his stomach and pulled him back until Xander was leaning into him. “We need to get you fed up.”

“I’m suddenly not feeling well.” Xander wondered if guilt could make you dizzy.

“As hard as you pushed, I’m not surprised. But pushing someone in a direction they don’t want to be led is hard, innit?”

“What?” Xander looked over his shoulder, struggling to figure out what Spike was saying.

“Bloody hell. I always do fall for the ones who are ‘round the twist. Come on then, luv.”

Not understanding, but too tired to sort it out, Xander let Spike tug him toward the stolen car. His head felt like it was stuffed with cotton, and every movement made him feel like he might slide off the face of the earth.


	38. Benny steps out of the shadows

Spike half carried him to the car, and left him leaning against it as he unlocked the stolen sedan. Closing his eyes, Xander took several deep breaths and felt the strength return. It was like he’d thrown a punch and needed to shake out his arm. “That was a power,” Xander said softly.

“I reckon it was.”

Xander opened his eyes to see Benny standing next to a blue van. Elizabeth was twenty feet or so back, watching warily. She was afraid Benny was about to get hurt, Xander realized.

Spike moved quickly to get between Xander and Benny. “You got a problem with that, mate?”

Benny held up his hands without moving. “None. You didn’t say nothing I haven’t said to him myself. Only sometimes Dean is about as stubborn as an old mule, and I ain’t about to drive him away with more truth than he can handle.”

Spike didn’t move. Every line in his body was prepared for battle, but Benny leaned into the van, making a show of looking casual.

“What are you?” he asked Xander.

“Not your business,” Spike snapped.

“I honestly don’t know,” Xander said at the same time. Spike glanced over his shoulder with one of those ‘Are you an idiot’ looks, and Xander could only shrug.

“You feed on human food mostly? Not on blood?” Benny asked.

“Time for you to move on,” Spike said with a shift in his posture that definitely meant danger.

Benny turned his focus to Spike. “Do you even feel the bloodlust anymore, are you so old that it’s a dry, withered need in your chest?”

“I feel it,” Spike said slowly. “I drink bagged.”

Xander frowned. That wasn’t technically true anymore. Ever since Spike had rescued him, he had definitely traded in bagged for Xander blood.

“All the time? You never hunger so much that your insides twist up?”

Spike raised his chin, but he didn’t answer.

“Do you feel the need to crew up with someone—to have a crew, a clan, a family? Does your kind of vampire feel that need?”

“Do you have a point?” Spike was sounding less and less amused.

“If it weren’t for Lizzy…” Benny got a haunted expression. “I wanted to go with that fils de pute that came hunting for me because it would mean not being alone, but I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t go back to hunting humans and then look Lizzy in the eye. I’m a bastard, but god a’mercy, I couldn’t do that.”

“I’m still not seeing a point,” Spike said. His voice was tight, and Xander thought back to all the times Spike had gone back to Angel, all the times he’d stuck with Buffy when any reasonable person would have run for the hills. Suddenly Xander suspected that the two types of vampires might have more in common than he thought.

“You said you’re learning your powers, that you made a child without meaning to. Are you an alpha?”

Xander stopped breathing, and suddenly Spike’s whole body shifted into something with sharper angles and more deadly intent.

“No fighting!” Elizabeth said as she trotted closer.

“Lizzy, stay back!” Benny cried out as he moved to get in front of her. For his trouble, he got punched in the arm and Lizzy still squirmed her way around him. However, she couldn’t get too far because Benny caught her around the waist and held her tight, and human strength was not going to break free from a vampire. Besides, she’d already made her point because Spike couldn’t attack without going through her, and he was already dropping back. Yep, Spike was not going to mess with anyone who reminded him of Joyce, and there was no way he could miss the similarities in personality if not in looks.

“Yes, I’m an alpha,” Xander said without giving Spike a chance to jump in and make things worse. “I was attacked with magic in my own world, and Eve used that power to turn me into an alpha… I don’t know. Alpha slayer works as well as anything.” Saying that felt oh so wrong, but it wasn’t like this world had any actual slayers to object.

Benny closed his eyes for a moment, and Xander got the impression he might be praying.

“If you’re looking for alpha blood, you’re in no shape to take on either of us, and hiding behind a woman’s skirt won’t help if you attack,” Spike warned.

Elizabeth frowned. “What’s an alpha, and why is everyone so tense about it?”

Since Spike and Benny weren’t exactly getting along, Xander decided he had to play nice if he wanted to keep this from getting uglier. “There’s a demon called Eve. She is one of the old ones who lived here long before people were ever born. She gives birth to monsters, and she made me herself, so I’m an alph or alpha, a first generation monster.”

“One of the most powerful monsters on earth short of Eve herself, who can’t come back to Earth because Dean poisoned her with Phoenix ash,” Benny added. “The stories say that alphas have powers that their descendants can’t dream of. I know that the vampires who were topside when the Armageddon came a’calling said that the alpha vampire reached right into their minds and called on them to rise up and kill humans. I figure I’m lucky I was out of commission at the time.”

Elizabeth looked up at Benny. “An alpha can do that?”

“That’s what they say,” Benny agreed. “And the alpha vampire ain’t fond of humans, which is why his descendants generally don’t make friends easily.” He looked down at her with such fondness that it was clear he made an exception for her. But then he’d clearly made an exception for Dean, too. Either the alpha vampire wasn’t pushing much human-hate right now or Benny was strong enough to ignore it.

“Take your pity party somewhere else,” Spike suggested coldly.

Benny straightened up, and pushed Elizabeth to one side. This time she allowed herself to be maneuvered so that Benny could step forward. “They say an alpha can turn another monster, providing that monster is far enough removed from his own alpha.”

“You want me to turn you?” Xander felt panic rise up and press against the bottom of his throat until he wanted to vomit.

“I know it puts me closer to an alpha, but there’s only so long I can hold out like this—no crew to jungle up with, no human blood, no hunting. It’s not in my nature, and I fight every day to hold onto this life. If it weren’t for Lizzy…” He turned and gave her a pained look before he turned back toward Xander. “If being your child means I can live with humans easier and not feed on ‘em, that’s a good trade.”

“Trade implies we get something,” Spike said. Spike was definitely looking for reasons to say ‘no,’ Xander realized.

“Sure enough,” Benny agreed. “I’m a good hunter, and if you’re looking for children to keep the other monsters at bay, I’m willing to sign up for that crew. I’m told I’m fairly loyal, at least until someone tells me I should kill folk who don’t deserve to be killed.”

Spike stepped forward and looked Benny up and down. “So, every person you ever killed deserved it?” Spike asked coldly.

Benny sighed. “No. I ain’t going to make that claim. But I fell in love, and now I see humans as more than food. I can’t… I can’t keep on smelling them and thinking on food. It’s more than a vampire can handle.”

Spike fell silent again.

“Benny, I don’t actually know what I’m doing. I could hurt you or kill you if I even try this.” Xander felt bad, he really did, but turning someone scared him more than he could explain.

“If you do kill me, I suppose that’d be a mercy. It’d save Dean from having to later.”

Elizabeth gasped.

Benny turned to look at her. “I can’t lie, Lizzy. I spend every day fighting against the need to feed. One day I’m going to be too weak to keep on a’fighting.” When Elizabeth took a step back, he hurried to add, “I wouldn’t never hurt you, cher. Not you or Dean or anyone I knew, but the folk who come walking through smell too much like food.”

“I feel that too,” Xander blurted out.

Benny turned around fast, clearly startled. “You feel the need to feed?” The anguish on Benny’s face made it pretty damn clear that he’d pinned a lot of hopes on this plan.

“I smell it around some monsters,” Xander said. “Leviathan smell like chocolate and I can’t resist chocolate. Trust me, Spike is less than amused when I go running off, but there’s no way I can stand still and have that smell pass by without trying to eat it.” Xander stopped. Shit. Was that what Spike and Benny felt when they smelled humans? Xander looked from one to the other, but both vampires had completely shuttered expression.

“But you don’t feel that with humans?” Benny asked carefully.

Xander shook his head.

“I’d rather you try than you leave me here to fight my nature.” Benny raised his chin.

“But I could kill you,” Xander explained, even though he was getting the idea that was not as much of a deterrent as it would have been for Xander.

“Then I land in purgatory,” Benny said without much emotion. “There’s no need to hunt there. And yeah, the others are likely to try and kill me, but a good fight ain’t a bad thing.” Benny gave a smile that looked a whole lot like Spike’s.

Xander opened his mouth, but Spike moved closer and put a hand on Xander’s arm. “He’s not telling you everything,” Spike said, and the smile vanished from Benny’s face.

“Oh?”

“Yeah, oh?” Xander echoed.

Spike gave him a weary look.

“No, honestly, I don’t know what I’m leaving out,” Xander said.

Spike shook his head and looked back at Benny. “He’s not the most dominant creature on earth. I suspect you’ll inherit that, too.”

For the first time, Benny looked concerned.

Spike looked over at Elizabeth. “Since you have her blood in you already, it could be that you’ll end up feeling a need to stay with her, to listen to her.” Spike gave Elizabeth a sharp look. “And you don’t know what it is to have a supernatural creature fixated on you.”

Benny took a quick step back. “I appreciate you telling me. Maybe this isn’t the wisest idea.”

“Wait.” Elizabeth stepped forward. “You’re not saying ‘no’ for me. So, what do you mean by fixated?” she asked Spike.

Long seconds passed as Spike tried to have a staring contest, but Xander didn’t have any doubt how it was ending. Sure enough, he folded like a handfan. “This one,” Spike said poking a thumb in Xander’s direction, “stays close all the time, and if I sent him away, I suspect he’d be back in no time.”

“Weirdly accurate,” Xander agreed as he thought about what life would be like away from Spike. He didn’t want that.

“Would I be in danger?” Elizabeth asked.

Xander would have given an immediate ‘no,’ but Spike seemed to think about it for a second.

“Cher, we’re not doing this,” Benny said firmly. However he couldn’t walk away without leaving her, and staying put made that statement seem a little less statementlike and a little more like pleading.

“If you order him to do something totally against his nature—to walk into a fire or let a leviathan walk past—there might be trouble,” Spike finally answered. “And if he’s Xander’s child, he’d going to have a lot more power than you can handle if he gets it in his head to pull against the leash.”

“But he wouldn’t try to turn me?”

“Lizzy! Never!” Benny said in an anguished voice.

“Xander never showed any interest in making me into someone I’m not,” Spike said. “I don’t think Benny would turn you, but that’s not something either of us could promise. If I were dying, I don’t doubt for a second that Xander would do anything to save me, even if that meant turning me.”

“But I’d be what Xander is, not a vampire?” she checked.

Benny moved to her side. “Lizzy, don’t be talking about this.”

“You want this for yourself. I have to decide if I want it for myself,” she said. He had grabbed her arm, and she rested her palm on the back of his hand. “I’m not rushing into this blind, but I’m not going to let you walk away from an opportunity because you think I can’t handle it.”

“I know you can handle it, cher. You handle everything, but you don’t want no part in this.” Benny looked over at them. “If we waited until her blood was out, would that mean I would turn to whoever was near enough?”

“Someone not me?” Elizabeth asked. “Are you trying to protect me or suggesting that I’m not good enough for you?”

“What? No. Lizzy, I would never say that.” Benny looked half panicked.

“Then you let me make up my own mind, Benny Lafitte.”

He opened his mouth, but maybe he’d seen that he was just prolonging the agony of defeat because he closed it without any more comments.

“Would Benny be open to anyone’s suggestions? I don’t want him to feel trapped.”

“Then definitely don’t use the bondage gear on him,” Xander muttered. Benny looked over sharply, but Elizabeth didn’t seem to have heard. Xander cleared his throat. “I don’t listen to just anyone. And yeah, I listen to Spike because he makes better judgment calls than I do, but trust me, I can still argue with him. I’m pretty famous for calling him an idiot when he does something idiotic.”

“Oi,” Spike protested, but he didn’t bother trying to defend himself.

“So, this would be between me and Benny?” Elizabeth asked. She got a thoughtful look on her face before turning to Benny. “I want to do it.”

“Cher…” he protested.

“You already said you wanted this, even if it meant dying. Would being tied to me be worse than dying?”

“Of course not,” Benny hurried to reassure her, his hand coming up to rest against the side of her neck. Xander wondered what it meant to a vampire that a woman who knew what he was would let him touch her there.

“Do you have any objections other than some worry that I can’t handle it?” Elizabeth’s stern look make it pretty clear she didn’t want to hear that argument.

“I never said you couldn’t handle it.”

“You implied it. Loudly,” she said. “And I can. You’re my friend, my family. If you’re in pain, then we find a way to fix it together.”

“But that don’t mean sharing the pain,” Benny said softly.

Elizabeth looked over at Spike. “Is this going to hurt me?”

“Don’t see how,” Spike said. Benny gave him the nastiest look to end all nasty looks.

“Then I’ll take a small risk to myself to save you from dying.”

“I’ve had my time in the sun, cher. If I die, it’s because it’s my time.”

“And if you back out of this now, I am going to make you the sorriest vampire on the face of the entire planet,” Elizabeth said with a hint of fury behind the words. “You came out here ready to do anything to try this, and we’re trying it.” She looked over at Xander. “Just don’t hurt him.”

Xander wondered when the others had started assuming he would do this if Benny and Elizabeth agreed. Even Spike had fallen silent, but listening to Benny’s speech about how people smelled good to eat, Xander couldn’t walk away without trying to help. He just worried that his attempts to help were often unhelpful. “I can promise that I’ll try to not hurt him, but I’m new at this. I could kill him.”

Elizabeth’s eyes grew shiny and she took several deep breaths as if she had to settle herself. “Try not to?” she asked.

“Lizzy.”

“You need to do this. I understand that, but I’m not going to be happy if you die on me,” she said. She grabbed his arm and held on tightly, and Xander looked away from the intimacy there. They were both hurting, and Xander hated that it all came down to whether he could fix things.

Spike’s arm came around his waist and pulled him close. “Do you want to try?” Spike asked, no judgment in his voice.

“When you smell humans, do you feel that way, like I do about demons and chocolate smell?”

Spike hesitated, and that told Xander what he needed to know. “It got better after the soul. I understood why I had to resist instead of just having a bit of technology that made me stop feeding,” Spike said. “And some kinds of animal blood scratches the itch more than other.”

Xander closed his eyes as he thought about all the times he’d teased Spike. “Yeah, I want to try and help,” Xander said.

He felt Spike’s hand under his chin, and he opened his eyes. “It’s been a right treat since I started snacking on you,” Spike said. “I don’t ever feel the bloodlust, and if I think I might start, I can just nip in and steal a little of yours.”

“Take as much of mine as you want, Spike,” Xander said firmly. “Honestly. I make lots.”

Spike smiled at him.

“How do we do this?” Benny asked.

“We don’t do it here,” Spike said firmly. “Do you want to go back to the café?”

Elizabeth shook her head. “I have a bit of land close enough to the swamps that most people avoid it. Every time it rains, I take a boat to work, but there’s a solid house built high up on a hill.”

“Then we go there,” Spike said.

Benny nodded, but he looked a little like a man going to his execution. Xander knew how he felt.

“I’ll draw you a map,” Elizabeth offered.

They were doing this. Xander watched at Elizabeth drew on the back of an envelope. Benny watched Xander, his eyes searching for something. Xander looked right back. Awkward.


	39. Demonic adoption agency

Spike drove though the split rail fence that looked like it had been standing since the 1800s. “Do you think Benny lived here?” Xander asked. If Elizabeth were his descendant, maybe she had inherited his house. “When he was human, I mean.”

“The land, maybe,” Spike said. “But that house doesn’t look old enough.”

“It looks pretty old.”

Spike snorted. “This part of the world is rough on buildings. Trust me, if that were a hundred years old, it wouldn’t look that good.”

Xander didn’t answer. An old truck sat by the front door, and a jeep was parked under a tarp that someone had put over a framed out garage that someone had left unfinished. Before Spike had turned off the car, the door opened. Benny stood there looking about as wary as a man can get.

“We can turn around and drive off, luv,” Spike offered. Part of Xander wanted to. Desperately. Turning Benny into one of his children or minions or whatever… it felt like turning a monster loose on the world. But if he didn’t, a good man was going to get trapped by his own hunger. Xander knew the near-pain of smelling a leviathan, the way he didn’t seem to have any control. He couldn’t let Benny suffer under that curse, especially when Benny wanted to like humans.

“No,” Xander said. This might not be the right thing, but it was less wrong than walking away. Xander briefly wondered what Dean would think of this. Would he approve? Did he know how close Benny was to the edge?

Dean was probably heading for that meeting with the general or tracking down his brother, or both. But he’d walked away when Benny really needed family, and Xander had to believe that was because he didn’t understand. He didn’t know how much Benny needed him, and Xander wasn’t going to walk away.

Xander got out of the car, butterflies already setting up camp in his stomach.

Elizabeth appeared at the door behind Benny, and she stood there with her hand on his back, watching. Spike got out of his side of the car and slammed the door hard enough that a small flock of birds rose from the trees that surrounded them.

“You ready?” Spike asked.

“As I’ll ever be,” Benny answered. His gaze was locked on Xander.

Xander wondered what it felt like to know that you were turning yourself over to another monster, to know that you might just die. He glanced over to Spike. Fact was Spike could kill him any time, and the fact that Xander had more power wouldn’t stop it. Spike was older and trickier, and he cheated. Like ninety percent of the time he cheated. If Spike wanted him dead, he’d be dead.

But that was different because Xander had learned to trust Spike. Spike had saved him from the preacher and saved everyone from the First. But Benny had one day to build some sort of trust with Xander.

Xander’s doubts started pressing to the surface. “If you can’t trust me, accept the energy I push into you, this could be very bad,” Xander said when he stopped at the bottom of the steps.

Benny stepped back and held the door open. “You had a chance to kill me. You didn’t.”

“But I hurt you. And if I’m trying to give you energy and you’re afraid of being hurt again—” Xander broke off and let the silence carry all his worries.

Elizabeth looked concerned, but Benny started laughing. “Cher, I’ve been hurt worse than that by those who claimed to love me.”

“I knocked you out.”

“Exactly,” Benny said with a chuckle. “Get yourselves up in here.”

Xander waited until Spike passed him and then he followed. The living room was small with handmade quilts on the walls and an old couch decorated with colorful pillows. Spike sat on one arm, and watched the room. Xander had expected him to storm in and start directing traffic, but he seemed happy to sit and watch. Xander stood near him, not sure what to do. With Dorsey, instinct had sort of taken over.

“You knocked me out,” Benny said, the humor gone. Maybe he realized Xander was freaking out a little. “I’ve had people who claimed to like me tie me down and torture me. You weren’t trying to do no harm, and I can tell the difference between an honest mistake and malicious intent. Of course, you might want to keep in mind that you look a good deal more threatening than any human, so you can see how Dean and I got a little twitchy, seeing as how we didn’t know what your intentions were.”

Xander cleared this throat. Yeah, he probably had kicked that hornets’ nest. Pretty much every time he tried to do the right thing, he did the wrong. He hadn’t been lying to Dean about that.

“So, how do we do this?” Benny asked. He stood in the middle of the living room with an almost defiant expression, and Elizabeth stood near the front door with her arms wrapped around her waist. There were a lot of uncomfortable people in the room, and Xander was counting himself in that number.

“He needs to drain off your energy,” Spike said when Xander couldn’t seem to find the words.

“Right. Feeding,” Xander said weakly.

“But you won’t kill him, right?” Elizabeth asked. She looked at Benny with all this worry, and Xander could almost taste her desire to help him.

“I’ll try not to,” Xander said. “I really am new at this.”

“Then we’d best get this done.” With that, Benny stepped right up close to Xander. Xander was surprised to find that Benny was a couple of inches shorter. He had a lot of presence that made him seem larger than life, but he wasn’t actually a very large man. He tilted his head back a little, and Xander felt his fear at showing weakness.

“You don’t have to do that,” Xander said. He reached up and caught Benny by the back of the neck, pressing so that Benny would stop baring it that way. Benny didn’t deserve to be forced into submission, but Xander had the feeling that’s what he expected.

“What do I need to do?” Benny asked.

“Give me a second while I try to stop hyperventilating,” Xander confessed.

Benny gave him an incredulous look.

“The boy is better when he doesn’t think about it before he does it,” Spike said. “Get him thinking too much and he worries the edges of bloody everything.”

“Sounds like Lizzy,” Benny said.

Xander gasped as he finally found whatever internal switch let him feed. Benny’s mouth fell open and his eyes got large and Xander felt the energy flow into him. He didn’t even have to pull at it. The energy was more like water flowing downhill, and panic rolled through Xander as he tried to slow the current. He finally did, and now Xander could feel the emotions rushing in with the power. Fear. Loneliness. Helplessness. Benny was dying an inch at a time, scrambling to find a reason to spend one more day avoiding the hunters’ blades. Xander could also feel the hot need Benny had felt at the idea of joining a crew again. He needed to belong. Loss. He’d had so much loss. Xander got a flash of Dean walking away, and Benny carried that like a deep wound, even if there was forgiveness clinging to the memory as much as pain.

Benny sank to his knees, his eyes starting to roll back in his head, and Xander refocused on the pure energy, sinking down with Benny. When Benny started to rock from side to side, Xander caught his arm and lowered him down to the deep plum rug in the center of the room. Fear. Guilt. A deep sense of failure and weakness.

Shoving all those aside, Xander gathered up his own strength and waited for some tipping point that his instincts told him hadn’t come yet. Benny grew weaker, and his skin turned the color of old parchment before finally his eyes started to close. In the distance, Xander could hear Elizabeth’s cries and he knew Spike was moving, but Xander focused everything on Benny. He shoved his energy back down that pathway he’d just used to feed. He pushed energy and more energy, and Xander could feel it slide off as if it were hitting a forcefield.

He kept shoving. He thought about Elizabeth and Dean. He thought about how much Benny could protect the fragile humans if he only took some of the energy. He focused on that and pushed with all his might. Dorsey had unconsciously reached out and grabbed at the energy Xander had offered, but Benny wasn’t.

Xander looked over at Elizabeth’s tear-streaked face and thought about that as he shoved another pulse of energy out, and this time, he could feel a small crack. Focusing on that, Xander concentrated. He drove every ounce of energy he could muster at that point, and it was like glass shattering.

The sudden lack of resistance startled Xander so much that he fell forward across Benny. They lay in a heap, the energy tangling between them, and then Benny gasped loudly.

“Damn.” Benny sounded dazed.

Xander understood the feeling. Even without soldiers around to zat him afterwards, making a child was hard. Spike’s hands pulled him up and helped him settle back down onto the couch. Elizabeth crouched near Benny, not touching but staring at him with worry even as she wiped her tears away.

“Are you okay?” She reached out, hesitated, and then pulled her hand back.

Benny struggled to sit up, and Xander reached out to help, but Spike caught his wrist and held it.

“Yeah. I’m fine, cher,” Benny said.

“Are you changed,” she asked next.

Benny frowned and ran a hand over his face. “Yeah. I reckon I am. I feel whole, like the part of me that was always pulling at me is gone.”

“Pulling at you?” Elizabeth moved closer and laid her hand on Benny’s arm. “What do ya mean?”

“Can’t really say,” Benny said slowly. He looked down at Elizabeth’s hand, and Xander could feel the shifting. Benny looked up at her face, and a spark seemed to flare up between them before it faded. “I always felt this pull, but it’s gone now.”

“Could be the vampire alpha was trying to call you,” Spike said.

Elizabeth helped Benny to his feet, and for a second, he clung to her. “If so, he wasn’t being real clear,” Benny said, “but I didn’t know how strong that pull was until it was gone. Thank you for that,” Benny said, holding out a hand to Xander. It felt strange, shaking hands like they had just finished a business transaction, but Xander solemnly took Benny’s hand.

When they made contact, Xander could feel Benny’s emotions wash over him. Relief. Obligation. Fear. Regret. Joy. All of them tangled up until Xander pulled his hand back and broke the connection.

Benny smiled at him. “I guess you’re my pappy now. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Xander said. He pulled his hand back, and Spike slipped an arm around his waist and held on tight.

“You both look rode hard and put up wet. I’ve never let a man go hungry, so if you come on in, I’ll make another one of those shrimp poboys you inhaled at the café,” Elizabeth offered.

Xander looked at Spike. He wanted to stay. Some part of him really wailed at the thought of leaving Benny. He wasn’t like Dorsey who had a whole base full of people who would support him—he only had Elizabeth. Not that he would ever call Elizabeth an “only.” Nope, he was way too smart to say anything that stupid out loud.

“We’ll stay,” Spike said.

Elizabeth’s face lit with a smile. “Good, because this one will not be passing out like that Dorsey man did. I want to know everything,” Elizabeth said. Benny got an embarrassed look on his face.

“Now, cher, I’m sure they want to get clear before the Air Force turns up.”

“It sounds like the Air Force is avoiding them,” she said. She leaned in and gave him a kiss on the cheek before she turned and headed for the kitchen. “So, explain how feeding off energy works, and how often do you have to do it?” she called over her shoulder.

“Lord have mercy, I have turned her into a mother hen,” Benny said sadly, but he still had a crooked smile.

“She can mother hen with Spike. He does it too,” Xander said with some sympathy. It was nice to know you were the center of someone’s life, but it did get a little much sometimes.

Benny eyed Spike. “Yeah, I can see you’re the sort.”

Spike flipped him two fingers before standing up and heading for the kitchen himself. “The first thing you have to know, mum, is that the idiots will try and starve themselves rather than admit they need more food and energy than normal,” Spike said. Xander cringed.

“Sorry,” he whispered. He stood up, and the world spun a little. Benny reached out and caught his arm, steadying him.

“I do that now, so if I inherited more of a tendency from you, I suppose she should know,” he said. “Mind you, I’d prefer him phrasing it a little different.”

“That’s sorta Spike,” Xander said by way of an apology. With that, he headed into the kitchen. Yeah, Spike was going to embarrass him, but Elizabeth was making poboys, and her cooking was definitely worth it.

They talked until the sun came up, and then Spike and Xander crashed in the spare bedroom with blankets tacked up around the windows. While Spike had revealed all kinds of embarrassing details, including how sometimes it was important to just take a slayer demon in hand and throttle him until he stopped being an idiot, Benny had gotten his own back by teasing Spike mercilessly about having to avoid the sun like some sort of fictional horror movie vampire. It felt almost like home. Xander knew they couldn’t stay because Spike’s paranoia about the Air Force was way too thick for that. Besides, as much as Benny and Elizabeth felt like home, this universe didn’t. But for one night Xander let his guard down, and when he curled up and felt Spike’s arms around him, he could honestly say he was happy.


	40. Back to the Spander

Another day, another hotel, another call home. Xander would have felt guilty about the paint on the carpet, but honestly, witchy runes in white house paint could only improve the décor of the motel they were in. This one was done up with horses. Horse wallpaper. Horse carpet. Bits and bridles for towel hooks even. Someone in this universe had offended the god of motel decorating and that pissy little shit was still getting even.

Spike finished the spell and the air shimmered as it made contact with the others back home.

“Red, you there?” Spike asked.

“Spike! Oh Goddess, I was worried when you missed the last check in. Is Xander okay?”

“Fine and fit and mostly not tripping over my own feet,” Xander offered.

“I wouldn’t go that far,” Spike said as he looked to the wide patch of spilled white paint where Xander had accidentally kicked the can over. But again, Xander wasn’t feeling guilty because it actually made the room look better.

“Good news,” Willow said, her voice warbling a bit as the spell struggled to maintain the connection. “Well, mostly good news, with a pinch of potentially bad news depending on your definition of bad.”

“Red…” Spike definitely made that sound like a threat.

“Right. Okay, so I have a spell. And I think Xander might actually fit through it, but it doesn’t work from that dimension to this one.”

“Um, Willow, that’s a problem,” Xander said, “because I’m in this dimension and I’m trying to get to that one.”

“Yes, but you didn’t go straight there.”

“Purgatory,” Spike said with a sigh.

“Exactly! Purgatory! And if you can get to purgatory on your side and I can get there on my side, then I think I can open a portal between the two purgatories, and you can come home.”

As good as that sounded, Xander’s gut was still uneasy. “Willow, where is the pinch of potentially bad in this?”

She took a second to answer, which was never a good thing. “The magical rules in purgatory are way different, so I’m almost sure that getting pulled from one side to the other won’t strip off your powers, but I can’t be sure.”

Spike flashed into gameface, even though she couldn’t see him.

Xander dropped down to sit cross-legged next to Spike. If he didn’t sit, he was about to fall down because he knees had definitely gone weak. “Willow, if this is an excuse to depowerfy me, that is a monumentally bad idea. The powers are part of me, and I really want to stay me. You have got to make sure that I’m coming through without missing bits or I’m not going to try,” Xander said firmly.

“Xander!” Willow sounded shocked.

“Red, I’m seconding that,” Spike said firmly. “The boy has changed too much to go back, and if you try, you’ll kill him. If you can’t make the spell stable enough to get all of him through, then we wait.”

The pause at the other end made it pretty clear that Willow had been scheming, and Xander was guessing Dawn, Buffy, and Andrew were probably her co-schemers. Great. They wanted him to go back to being the helpless guy who drank his problems away and hid in his room… or in the nearest bar. God, he’d been turning into his father—minus the unwanted child.

“They mean well. They don’t know how things are, luv,” Spike said softly. He reached over and ran his fingers over Xander’s neck. Xander shivered and leaned closer. Spike’s arm reached around his waist, holding him tightly, and Xander relaxed into that grip. He kept screwing up, and he knew it. He didn’t know how to be the person who didn’t, so until he could get himself back on an even keel, he was going to let Spike handle this instead of screaming about how the others always tried to run his life for him. And how weird was it that he was okay with Spike running his life?

“Are you still there?” Willow called.

“Yeah, we’re here,” Spike agreed. “We’re still not going through with this unless you can bloody promise me that he’s coming through in one piece. I’m not bringing him through just to go to his funeral.”

Willow’s gasp was audible across the spell. “We would never put him in danger.”

“Maybe not on purpose, but you can’t separate him from this power any more than you can separate my soul from my vampire.”

“Right, no separating Xander from the power,” Willow agreed. “As long as you’re coming through purgatory, that’s possible.”

“Better be, Red,” Spike said with a growl in his voice. It was odd, hearing Spike be all protective of him, especially when Xander knew he’d never been great at protecting himself from his friends. He got bossy and shitty and passive aggressive, and sometimes he even got drunk and meanly honest, but he wasn’t good at protecting himself.

“He’s our friend. We wouldn’t hurt him.” Willow was definitely getting offended now. Spike, however, didn’t seem to care.

“You wouldn’t mean to, and you’d be sorry after. However, he’d still be dead. Now how do we get into purgatory from here and when do you need us to go?”

“I’m sending a spell. It’s going to require you to kill something evil.”

“Evil or inhuman? Or both?” Xander asked. He wondered how long they’d all used evil and inhuman interchangeably. A long damn time.

“Both,” Willow said. “I’m sending a spell, but you can’t use it until after the paper turns red.”

“And if we use it too early?” Spike asked.

“Um…we won’t be ready on this end, so you’ll be stuck in purgatory waiting for us to catch up.”

“Right. We’ll wait,” Spike said firmly. A scroll burst into existence, and Xander’s ears popped. “We’ve got the spell,” he said, reaching in to grab the paper.

“Okay. So…”

“We’ll see you soon,” Spike said, and leaning down, he blew out the candle that was part of the spell. Willow’s voice just vanished. Spike glanced over, and then seemed to take a second look where he really studied Xander. “How are you doing?”

“Me? Hey. I’m great. We’re going home. That’s… great.” Xander frowned as he tried to come up with any other word he could use to describe it.

“You lie about as well as you walk.”

“You don’t have to get all insulty.”

Spike stood and pulled Xander up with him. Then he tugged on Xander, forcing him to turn until they faced each other. “Do you want to stay here?”

“Here kind of sucks, Spike. In terms of universes, this is one of the shittier ones.”

“I’m not disagreeing. But you don’t seem exactly thrilled with going back.”

Xander chewed on his lower lip as he thought about it. It was simpler here. If they went back, he was going to have to face his friends and hopefully do it without turning into his father or accidentally breaking them with his new powers.

“We can stay here, pet,” Spike offered with way more sympathy than Xander expected. Xander felt like cobwebs were all tangled up in his brain cells and he couldn’t think right.

“What are we doing?” he asked.

“I thought that’s what I asked you.”

Xander reached up and grabbed Spike’s wrists. “What are we doing? You keep dropping all these hints like maybe we don’t hate each other anymore, and I don’t know exactly where you’re going.”

Spike’s eyebrows rose all the way up. “Do you need a bloody roadmap?”

“Yes,” Xander said firmly.

For a second, Spike blinked at him. “Okay then,” he finally said. “You’re a trusting bugger, and I like that someone finally trusts me enough to let me lead without always reminding me of every soddin’ mistake I ever made. And I want to point out that my plans did work until I ran into you lot. I thought I disregarded rules, but I’m a paragon of conformity compared to you.”

“I almost understand what that means,” Xander said.

Spike rolled his eyes.

“Does this have anything to do with me being strong?”

“Some,” he admitted.

“Yeah, the idea of sex with humans is actually creeping me out a little. They break,” Xander said, wrinkling his nose.

That made Spike laugh. “That they do, luv. You shag a human and either you need an iron control over yourself or you’re breaking them. Dru always tried to keep her human pets alive, not that it did much good.”

“This is a disturbing conversation.”

“And that’s something else I like. I don’t have to wonder where I am with you. You tell me. And even when you’re annoyed as a wet cat, you still listen.”

“You’re only about a hundred years older than me, and in case you haven’t noticed, I suck at running my life. You don’t panic or flail or do really stupid shit just because you can’t think of anything less stupid to do. And you’re loyal, so I know if you promise to stick with me, you will. And that’s kind of important because I’ve been on this whole screwed up mission to drive people away.”

“Willow,” Spike said.

“She wants me to be happy-happy all the time. Does she have any idea what I saw in Africa? I mean, people are not the nicest creatures in the world, and she wants me to brush all that off like it’s dust.”

Spike pulled Xander closer, his arms slipping around Xander’s waist. “No, she hopes, pet. She hopes you can brush it off and she’s afraid that they abandoned you. They were all so caught up in their own projects, they never thought about what it would mean for a human doing the work they asked you to do.”

“Giles asked,” Xander whispered. He closed his eyes and let himself feel Spike’s strength around him.

“Giles is a right git, but you’re the one who asked for a job.”

“He gave me Africa.”

“You turned down half the world before he landed on Africa.”

“How did…” Xander sighed. “Buffy ripped him a new one, huh?”

“Bloody right,” Spike agreed. “But you’re too like Dean, always hiding that pain so the others think you’re not feeling it, and then when the surface cracks and they see all that suffering all boiling over inside, they don’t know what to do with it.”

“I don’t do that,” Xander protested, but he knew Spike was right. He did do that.

Spike snorted his disgust with the lie. “Buffy goes out and fights. I do the same. Red will go and have herself a cry and do a little meditating. You’re the one who bottles it all up until you’re ready to blow.” Spike pulled back and caught Xander’s arm as he guided him back toward the bed. “You never have figured out how to let any of those feelings out, have you?”

“Sure. I drink. And then I’m drunk. Drunk lets it out.” Xander gave him a goofy grin.

Spike gave Xander a little shove so he sat on the edge of the bed. “Pet, if drinking worked, you would have been the mentally healthiest git in our universe.”

“So that’s a ‘no’ on drinking the problems away?” Xander nodded. “I mostly already knew that.”

Running his fingers through Xander’s hair, Spike looked down at him. “I always did fall for the loony ones.”

“Hey, I resemble that remark.”

Spike rolled his eyes. “Ya have to find a way to claw all that emotion out and let it go.”

“Easier said than done,” Xander confessed.

“I know how I like to do it.” Spike wiggled his eyebrows.

“I’m not chasing down a mohra demon just so you can kick it to death.”

Spike blinked at him. “I’m making a pass at you, ya nit.”

“Oh. You are?” Xander tried to find more words, but honestly, they weren’t there. Sex. With Spike. Okay, the thought wasn’t bad, but there was a definitely lack of knowing what exactly that meant. “I’ve never, you know.”

“After a hundred years, I know a lot,” Spike said with another eyebrow wiggle, so Xander assumed that was more sex talk.

“I should be more weirded out by this.”

Spike ran his fingers through Xander’s hair. “You’ve been holding to me since I tied you to the bed, pet. I could have taken you then, and your demon would have been happy enough, even if the rest of you needed time to catch up.”

Xander frowned and thought back. “No, I’m pretty sure I would have totally freaked.”

“Bloody right you would have, but you would have enjoyed it. I can feel ya, luv. I can feel ya the way I might a minion I made, only the feelings are sharper. Maybe this is what it feels like to make a childe, but if so, Angelus is a right bastard for leaving someone he could feel like this.” Spike’s voice seemed to fade out, and his fingers stroked through Xander’s hair.

“You feel me?”

Spike sniffed and pulled his hand back before nodded. “Yeah, luv, I can. If you focused on yourself instead of running around trying to fix the rest of the world in some attempt to avoid yourself, you’d feel me too.”

Xander held his breath and tried to listen to his own thoughts. It was pretty much a failure because all he could feel was the stirring fears about going back, and the guilt about not helping Dean and a cold sort of desperation to do something that he couldn’t even identify.

“Kit off,” Spike said before stripping off his shirt and tossing it to one side. Xander’s mouth fell open and he just stared at Spike. Naked Spike. Beautiful naked Spike. Xander’s cock started warming to the idea right way, even if the rest of him was sort of frozen.

After sitting down on the edge of the bed, Spike pulled off his boots and put them next to the scroll Willow had sent through. While Xander’s fingers fluttered around his buttons, he struggled to get even one open before Spike sat back up. Xander could feel his face heat up, and he expected mocking. However, Spike gave him a soft smile and moved to stand in front of him. After batting Xander’s hands away, Spike took over the buttons.

“You’re alright, luv. Just breathe.”

“I don’t have to breathe,” Xander pointed out. He fisted his hands and wondered what to do with them. Reaching up, he rested them on Spike’s hips for a second before dropping them back to his sides.

“Yeah, but it will keep you relaxed. Just focus on not forgetting to breathe.”

“Easier said than done, Xander whispered as his cock started to ache and his skin itched. He wanted contact. Needed it. Spike slipped Xander’s shirt off, his hands skimming over Xander’s overwarm skin. His brain whiting out a little, Xander reached up and caught Spike’s shoulders, holding tightly.

Spike chuckled and then pushed him back onto the bed. When he laid on Xander, his weight pinning Xander down, Xander thought he might come just from that. “You're mine, aren’t you, luv? I always take what’s mine.”

Xander groaned as Spike pressed his fingers deep into Xander’s shoulders. Then Spike kissed him. Hard. Demanding. Verging on painful as twin fangs nipped him. Xander thrust his hips up in a silent plea for more.

“Someone’s randy,” Spike teased.

“Someone’s Xander, and if you’re doing this with a Randy, I’m eating him,” Xander replied.

Spike laughed. “Someone’s got a jealous streak."

“Hell yes. Jealous, petty—” Xander might have kept going, but Spike said up and pressed the heel of his hand into Xander’s hard cock. His words vanished in a meaningless mewl. Only then did Spike start working on stripping Xander of his pants. While Xander tried to help, he was fairly sure that his squirming was more of a hindrance.

Xander shivered as Spike ran a possessive hand over Xander’s now-bare ass and down a thigh. He pressed back and wiggled in invitation.

"I’m going to enjoy this," Spike said as he stripped off his own jeans and underwear. Then he gave Xander a slap on the ass that made Xander gasp. Spike’s cock hung heavy between his legs as he stood there, and Xander reached out. He ran his fingertips over the soft skin, watching as it stiffened. This was odd, but Xander wanted it. He was hungry for it. Hell, he was about ready to beg if that’s what Spike wanted, but Spike stood there, looking down with this fond expression Xander didn’t quite understand.

“What do you want me to do?” Xander asked.

“Whatever you want,” Spike said, tilting his head to the side. Xander pulled his fingers back just a bit, and Spike caught his hand. Leaning closer, he brought Xander’s hand to his lips and kissed the inside of Xander’s wrist before sliding fangs into the flesh.

Xander cursed and thrust up into the air. Before he could repeat the futile gesture, Spike was there, his naked body pressing down into Xander.

Xander went wild, thrusting up as he tried to get the right friction on his cock to match the heat and tingling need that crawled up his arm as Spike fed. Spike slid his fangs free and gave Xander an evil smirk.

"Oi, someone's being all pushy." Spike grabbed Xander by the shoulders and physically shifted him farther up onto the bed before holding him down. Xander panted in need, but since he didn’t really know what he wanted, he waited for Spike to make the first move. Spike did that when he grabbed Xander's cock.

"Spike, please," Xander begged as he tried to thrust into the hand only to have Spike move with him, teasing him with the lack of friction. “Please.” Xander didn’t need dignity. Hell, he’d lost it so long ago he didn’t remember it anymore. He did need to come. Badly.

"My pace, luv," Spike said firmly. “Flip over.”

Xander hurried to do just that, and he got in one thrust against the sheets before Spike caught him by the hips and pulled him up so that his groin was above the bed. “Geez, Spike.”

“Get your knees under ya,” Spike ordered. Groaning with frustration and lust, Xander did that. Then he watched as Spike quickly locked cuffs around Xander’s ankles. The military had taken the ones Xander used to wear, and he’d forgotten how it felt to have leather pressing into his skin, reminding him that Spike felt this sense of ownership over him. Xander shivered in lust. Two more cuffs went around his wrist, and Xander waited for Spike to cuff his hands behind his back. That’s what Spike normally did. Instead, Spike clipped a short chain to Xander’s left hand and pulled it down until he could clip the other end to Xander’s left wrist.

When Spike repeated it on the other side, connecting right wrist to right ankle, Xander found his face pressed into the mattress with his ass up in the air. The helplessness made him groan with need, but Xander couldn’t do anything about it because his cock was hanging free.

"Such a pretty demon." Spike stroked his ass, pinching it when Xander least expected it.

"Spike, please," Xander found the words to beg.

“Do you feel me?” Spike asked, and Xander tried to nod, his cheek rubbing against the sheet.

“Really? Do you really feel me?” Spike laid his body across Xander’s back, and Xander could feel the faint press of power, a sense of ownership, a pleasure in watching a lover squirming and a hot need.

“Spike?”

“There you, luv.” Something wet and soft ran across his asshole. Xander groaned as the feeling of warmth traveled up his spine and radiated through his body. Spike moved, and something was inside Xander. A finger, he realized. Spike had put a finger in him. Xander pressed his forehead to the mattress and groaned in need.

“Someone’s ready to get buggered,” Spike teased.

“Yes and yes,” Xander agreed. The pressure in his ass grew, and muscles stretched in delicious ways. The beautiful pain shifted to a growing heat as Spike spread his fingers.

Spike reached inside and the pressure against Xander’s prostate made him cry out in need. He needed to thrust, to come, to move, to get fucked or do something, but Spike kept moving in slow motion. This was torture. Spike was torturing him.

Spike chuckled. “So impatient.”

"Impatient?" Xander demanded. “It’s sex. We’re men. Impatience is mandatory.”

“Someone has a lot to learn.” Spike shifted and Xander moaned in distress as his fingers pulled out. “Tell me if it hurts,” Spike said.

“It hurts,” Xander immediately answered. His cock was so hard and heavy and hot that it did. He needed to come so much that it was like he had itching powder in his shorts and he was sitting in the middle of math class. It was torture.

“Nancy boy.”

Xander didn’t answer because he could feel something huge pressing against his ass. He pressed back, desperate for more, and Spike grunted as he pushed in. The friction burned the way Mexican night at the Bronze burned his tongue. It verged on pain and made his eyes water, but he wanted to gobble up more and more. Xander moaned

Spike started tiny rocking motions, sinking deeper each time. Xander tried to push back and impale himself, but Spike held his hips and continued his own slow assault. Each thrust was longer, and now the pressure against Xander prostate came and went like waves that washed Xander's brain cells away with the tide. Gasping in both pleasure and pain, Xander fisted his hands and arched his back as Spike pulled out and then slammed in again. Finally Spike stopped, his cock buried all the way in Xander, and Xander wailed.

“Problem, luv?”

Xander would have been offended, but he could hear the edge in Spike’s voice. The vamp was barely holding on himself. Xander tightened his ass around Spike’s cock, and a low growl answered him.

The thrusts came harder. Their bodies slapped together so hard that it sounded like a slap fight. Xander cried out as he started coming and suddenly the heat eased as Spike came, and his come lubed Xander’s ass so he slid in and out easily. The new sensation sent pure pleasure crashing through Xander’s core. He panted, all his thoughts scrambled.

That’s when he really felt it. Spike’s pure satisfaction and warm possessiveness, yes. But he also felt Dorsey. He was hunting, moving warily and sending his senses out into the night. Benny was with Lizzy, his fears and needs raw as they talked. He could feel them. Lizzy and Willow were more distant whispers in his mind, but they were all there, connected to him. His children. His lover. His family.

Spike unhooked the chains from the ankle cuffs and Xander flopped down onto the bed and let Spike’s need for family wash through him. Family. Clan. Beings that would walk through eternity with him. The need had been a sharp edge of glass that Spike had never escaped.

“It’s why I could never walk away from Angel,” Spike said as he settled down next to Xander, his arm around Xander’s back. Then Spike slipped his leg between Xander’s leg and used his knee to press up into Xander’s sore ass. The little aftershocks of pleasure made Xander gasp.

“You feel me,” Xander said.

“Always have, since that first night you woke up tied to my bed. Felt you like a minion at first, but the sense kept growing.”

“But… I’m not a minion,” Xander said.

“Nope,” Spike agreed. “You’re not even a vampire, but when I saw what you did with Dorsey, I figured it out quick enough. You never were one for being alone, so any creature built out of your needs would want a partner. Need one, even.”

“So, this is me? This connection is because of what I am?”

“It’s what it means to be a slayer in this world. They need a partner.” Spike sighed. “We need to find another name or Giles is going to throw a wobbly.”

“That sounds like a good reason to keep the name,” Xander said. Yeah, it was a petty and shitty thing to say, but Giles hadn’t come to his wedding. And Giles had given him the job in Africa. And Giles had locked him up and chained him to a bed, although that was another Giles.

“Our Giles is not going to like me being demonified,” Xander pointed out.

“Fuck ‘em,” Spike said. “So, what about being called a hunter demon? There isn’t really a group that calls itself hunters in our world.”

Xander thought about it. “If we use hunter demon, you know people are going to ask what I hunt.”

“Wot? You plan to stay home and make dinner while I hunt the baddies?”

Xander pushed himself up enough to really look Spike in the face. “You want me to hunt with you?”

“Bloody hell, yes! I’m finding the biggest, baddest bugger we can find and waving him under your nose like a big piece of chocolate. Demons happen to like death and destruction.”

“Huh.” Xander dropped back down onto the bed. “The girls had exiled me from hunting, and that’s pretty much what caused my whole funk and the telling off of Willow right before Eve grabbed me.”

“Not their choice now, is it? You’re my hunter demon.” Spike kissed Xander’s shoulder before sliding his fangs into the flesh. Xander groaned as he felt the heat and pleasure of being fed upon and felt the growing warmth and satisfaction of feeding that flowed to him from Spike. Oh yeah. He did like his powers.


	41. Voyage home

“Ready?” Spike asked as he pushed the shapeshifter to its knees. The monster cursed at them through its gag.

“Ready,” Xander said firmly. He really hoped they could get through purgatory without running into Eve, but the closer they came to this moment, the more he doubted it. He could feel her like an itch under his skin.

The shapeshifter screamed as Spike thrust a silver knife through its heart, and then he started chanting. The wind started to howl as a portal slowly opened. The shapeshifter got sucked in, even though Xander could still see the body lying on the ground.

“Time to leave,” Spike said, holding out a hand. Xander grabbed it and hung on tightly as they both jumped into the void. They fell a good twenty feet to the ground in that still forest that looked exactly like where he’d found Eve. Of course, it was possible that all of purgatory looked the same.

The shapeshifter jumped to his feet and growled, but then Eve appeared from nowhere and held out her hand. The monster blinked and looked at her like he couldn’t figure out what was going on. She wore the same white dress that flowed around her even though there wasn’t any wind, and she raised her hand to rest it against the shapeshifter’s cheek. “Go, play with your brothers and sisters, my child,” she said gently.

The shapeshifter looked around, his eyes empty of any sort of awareness before he ran off toward the thickest of the trees.

She turned to toward them at that point, and Xander scrambled back while Spike fell into a defensive pose. At that point Xander started praying. Earnestly praying. They needed Willow to open that second portal, and fast.

“You are not my child,” Eve told Spike in that same kind, freaky voice. “But my youngest has chosen you and you are worthy.”

“Good ta hear,” Spike said, but he kept his defensive pose and retreated wary step by wary step. Xander made sure to stay behind him, even as he could feel the growing need to go to Eve’s side.

“My son. My child. You have given me grandchildren.” She smiled at Xander.

“Not the sort you wanted,” Xander blurted out. Spike glanced over his shoulder, and even though Spike hadn’t said a word, Xander definitely had the feeling that he’d just been called an idiot and told to shut up.

Eve smiled. “No, not the sort I expected. But then our children often choose paths we don’t expect. We have to love them until they come home to us. And if someone tries to kill all of them—to commit genocide on the entire race—we have to destroy the threat so totally that no one will ever cross us again,” she said. She might be talking about death and destruction, but she still sounded faintly like Mr. Rogers. Or Mrs. Rogers, anyway. It was slightly terrifying.

“We plan to pass through, so we’re not looking for trouble,” Spike said in a tone of voice that reminded Xander of the way he talked to Dru.

She smiled at him. “You’re a good friend, and you’ll keep my boy safe. Now that he has given me grandchildren, he is free to come and go from this place as he can. I may not open the portal for him, though. This is where my children come to rest, and I have lost the key to the nursery long ago.”

“We brought our own keys,” Spike said.

She kept smiling, and Xander could feel that pull. He took a step forward, and suddenly Spike’s hand caught him.

“Let him come to his mother, Spike,” Eve said. Spike opened his mouth, maybe to argue and maybe not, but a huge crack of thunder rocked the ground, and Spike stumbled to the side. Xander took that moment to move forward. He felt dreamlike and disconnected from his body as she reached up to cup his cheek. Behind him, he could hear the angry growl, but he couldn’t find the energy to care as Eve petted him. “You gave me such strong grandchildren. I will honor them.”

“They weren’t what you expected.” Now Xander felt loss in his failure. Mother wanted more.

“No regrets, Xander,” she said, and his heart filled with joy as he realized she approved. “I cannot control my children, and you cannot control the direction of yours. The generations will show their true nature, one way or another.” Eve smiled, and Xander felt a distant rumble of fear as he realized what she meant. She’d chosen him to be evil, and he hadn’t been. He’d chosen Dorsey and Benny to be good, but he had no guarantees. And even if they were good, who knew who they would turn.

“They will be our bright children, and whatever path they choose, we will love them,” Eve said firmly. She dropped her hand, and some of the haze covering Xander’s consciousness evaporated. Behind him, he could hear the wind howl, and Spike hand a hand around his wrist. He was shouting, but the words were lost to the roar of the portal.

“Go with my love, son,” Eve said to him, and then the ground went out from under Xander’s feet, and he felt the pull of the portal as his body was flung roughly around. Spike held him, and Xander reached out blindly, finding Spike and clinging to him as the magic flung them across the realities. Willow might be powerful, but Eve definitely had the dimension travelling thing down better. Xander had no more than thought that, when he found himself falling. He crashed into the ground, blinking as he tried to focus his eyes.

He’d grabbed Spike’s ankle in the portal, and now he let go as they tried to untangle themselves, but Spike had a bit of a struggle because his coat had gotten wrapped around his head.

“Bloody hell. Hard landing there, Red.”

“Sorry. Are you okay?”

Xander looked up to see Willow kneeling beside a giant casting circle. Kennedy and Buffy were outside that, swords drawn, and Giles knelt next to Willow, holding two bowls.

“Will, maybe we should move faster. I’m getting the wiggins here,” Buffy commented.

Xander looked around, and the trees were gone. This purgatory had the same stillness, but the sky was gray and the land a barren sweep of nothing. No Eve. No exiled monsters. Nothing.

“I agree,” Giles said. “Willow, are you strong enough for the second spell?”

“Good to go,” she said, but her eyes looked heavy and her hair was streaked with white. She’d been pulling on magic hard, but the second her gaze locked with Xander’s, she smiled. “Hey, you. No more getting kidnapped, got it?”

“Got it.” Xander knee walked the few feet that separated them, and caught Willow up in a big hug. “No more strange dimensions or Armageddons without my favorite girls,” Xander vowed. He felt Spike’s hand on his arm, pressing into his shoulders, and a presence in his mind blocked him from embracing Willow fully.

Xander blinked and looked over at Spike as he realized that Spike had just stopped him from accidentally turning Willow into whatever the other Willow and Elizabeth had become. He’d nearly changed her without thinking, and the reality of that knocked him back so he rested his butt on his heels.

“Xander, are you okay?” she asked. She didn’t even know what he’d almost done.

“We’re find, luv,” Spike answered. “It was just a rough ride, and the boy’s a little shaken up. You have to remember, he’s new to his powers, and he loses track of his power levels easily.”

“Oh.” Willow’s face turned sympathetic. “I brought chocolate if you’re hungry. You said you could still eat human food so if you—”

“Chocolate. Give,” Xander demanded. She laughed as she reached for a bag.

“That’s our Xander, never too beat up for food,” Buffy teased him. Xander grabbed the first chocolate bar and ripped off the paper before shoving half of it in his mouth.

“And never one to mind manners,” Spike added. Xander put an elbow in Spike’s stomach and swallowed as fast as he could.

“Chocolate good,” he said, but he didn’t mention that it wasn’t quite as good as absorbing the energy of a demon. Xander stopped as he realized something. He turned to Spike. “Stolen energy, that’s what smells so good.”

“Took you long enough, pet,” Spike said dryly.

“You could have told me.”

“And have you argue? Not a chance. You can figure this shite out on your own.”

Giles carefully put the two bowls on the ground and stood up. “What about stolen energy?”

“It smells good,” Xander said. He totally had not meant to blurt that out in front of everyone.

Buffy moved closer. “Good as in I’ll wear a little of that behind my ear or good like, man, I could eat three more of those?”

“Um…” Xander grimaced.

“Great,” Giles said wearily. And sadly, that was still way nicer than the other Giles, but there was some connection missing there. Xander reached for that sense of Giles as the father figure, but all he could feel was Eve’s love. Okay, that was freaky, but clearly Eve had done a little rearranging.

“You like to eat stolen power?” Willow wrinkled her nose as she stood up. “You don’t think I smell good, do you?”

Immediately, Buffy moved closer. She lowered her sword, but she definitely had her fists ready to go.

Xander shook his head. “No. No, no, no and hugely with the enormous no. You don’t smell edible at all. Demons who steal power smell chocolately, and the other reality had these leviathan demons that eat pretty much everything, and they smell really good.”

“Leviathans?” Giles had his research voice on.

“World eating bad guys who the good guys accidentally let loose on the world,” Xander explained. Dean’s visions had filled in a lot of gaps, including some Xander really didn’t need to know. Alstair had not been a nice demon.

“Well that’s not good,” Buffy said. “Can we help?”

“It’s not our world,” Giles said firmly. “Willow, let’s finish the second spell and get home.”

“Spelling… on it,” Willow agreed. She knelt back down, and Xander carefully stepped out of the witch circle and backed away so he wouldn’t be looming over her. The whole time, Spike held his wrist.

“That’s new,” Buffy said softly as she looked down. Kennedy glanced over and gave them a quick thumbs up gesture before returning to watching the dead landscape for enemy.

“Better get used to it, luv,” Spike said firmly.

Buffy looked at Xander.

“What he said,” Xander added.

She smiled at both of them. “Okay, I can do that. I am, however, going to tease you about going there first.”

“Only if I can tease you about keeping him longer,” Xander countered.

“Ouch.” Buffy elbowed him hard enough to make him stumble a little, but oddly it didn’t hurt. He watched Willow and Giles work off of a page, and this felt right. It was home.

“So,” Buffy said, “you like to eat stolen power. Are we talking only demons or would you get the munchies for rapists and politicians?”

Xander blinked. “I don’t know.” Okay, that was creepy.

“We’ll keep him away from political rallies until we know for sure,” Spike said calmly. “And by ‘we’ I mean I will. The boy’s my responsibility, and I won’t have Rupert or Red or even you getting in the middle.”

“Oh.” Buffy blinked for a second and then gave Xander a worried look. “And is that alright with you?”

“Yep,” Xander agreed. “I am officially saying that I suck at having demonic powers, and Spike gets to be in charge of it.” He didn’t mention nearly turning Willow by accident. “If I had been like this when Willow went all dark, would I have wanted to eat her?” Xander stopped, not wanting to even think about it.

Spike tightened his arm around Xander’s waist. “Probably luv, but maybe you could have drained the stolen power out without finishing the job.”

“Disturbo,” Xander complained softly.

“Seconding that,” Buffy agreed, and now she looked grossed out.

Willow stood up and glanced over. “You two talk louder than you think, and I’m not disturbed. If I steal power, then I’m no better than a demon, and Xander has official permission, only please don’t ever call it eating me again, not unless you want to wake up with magically green hair,” she warned. “So, we’re ready. Everyone grab hands, and this time please put the swords somewhere that I won’t get poked in the boob,” she said with a nasty look in Kennedy’s direction.

Yep, this was home. As much as part of Xander missed Dorsey and Benny—as much as he wasn’t looking forward to the inevitable ‘Xander can’t do that’ fights—as much as his girls and Giles sometimes drove him insane—this was home.

“I didn’t know if we would be attacked before hitting the ground,” Kennedy said apologetically, but she slid her sword into its scabbard and clipped the leather strap over the end to keep it in place. “Besides, it might have been Buffy.”

“Oh no. You poked, you apologize,” Buffy said firmly. “I do not go accidentally poking people with sharp objects. When I poke people, I mean it.” Buffy put her own sword away before claiming Xander’s free arm so that he was sandwiched between Buffy and Spike. “Everyone grab a loved one and hold on tight because if you land in Siberia, you get to find your own way home,” Buffy said cheerfully. With her other arm, she grabbed Giles.

“I’m rather more concerned about landing in the void or being pulled apart at the atomic level,” he pointed out. But he reached out for Willow. Kennedy held a hand out for Spike, and he took it, completing the circle. With a quick chant and a dropped vial, Willow opened up the new portal that would take them all home. This time, Xander was determined to do things better, and if he screwed up, he was pretty sure Spike would be around to kick his ass. He felt the amused press of Spike’s mind in his. Spike would definitely be around to kick his ass when needed.


	42. Epilogue

Benny walked out into the night, searching the faint ghosts that rose to meet him. He figured only one person would be carrying the sort of mental carnage he saw on his front lawn. “Dean? That you, brother?”

A shadow near the fence moved. “Benny,” Dean called.

“Hey. Lizzy has a good batch of gumbo cookin’ up. Come on in.” Benny headed downslope to where Dean waited.

“I’m not really fit company right now.”

“I ain’t ever fit company, and she still puts up with me.” Benny grinned, but his smile faded as he got close enough to feel the anguish rolling off Dean in waves.

“So, is it working?” Dean asked. He gestured toward the house on the hill.

“What? The whole going straight and playing the part of the boring man?” Benny moved closer and leaned on the split rail fence. “Nah. I go out and clean out a few nests every now and then. I get me some visions… track down some folk that I reckon need tracking. But most of the time I do just keep the grill running, and that’s fine as long as I can let the needs out every once in a while.”

Dean closed his eyes and ran a hand over his face.

“What has you all tied up in knots, Dean?”

“Nothing.” And that was about the worst case of lying that Benny had ever heard. He nodded and looked out over the gentle slope. Dean would talk when he was ready and not before. Benny was a little surprised that it only took about twenty seconds for Dean to reach that point. Either life was wearing him down worse than purgatory had or he was carrying too much.

“Sam loves the whole military thing. ‘Hey, let Carter and her guys handle it. Why doesn’t Dorsey try out his fancy new powers on this one? Maybe the general can just call in a fucking airstrike.’” Dean’s mocking voice wasn’t exactly attractive. The mention of Dorsey’s name made Benny reach back through that connection he could always feel. The vision of a tall black man with a military bearing came to mind. His brother—the other slayer. He could see Dorsey’s guide, a woman with red hair and a quick smile. Willow, his memory supplied. Benny felt a flash of both warmth and frustration.

“The military is letting Dorsey do some hunting then?”

“They love the powers.” Dean lifted his head and seemed to search the horizon for something he didn’t find. “Giles is a prick. He’s like Bobby, only with the arrogance of leviathan shoved up his ass.” Dean sighed. “But he does know a lot of lore, more than Dad ever did.”

Dean stared out at the darkness as the bugs sang their chorus. “He doesn’t want to hunt,” Dean whispered. It didn’t take a genius to figure out who Dean meant, and it sure wasn’t this Giles. “If we aren’t hunters together, what do we have in common?”

Benny couldn’t answer that, so he didn’t.

Pushing away from the fence, Dean started to pace. “We’re hunters. We were raised to be hunters. But he can just walk away from a fight—push it off onto some jarhead who salutes nicely and the he doesn’t think anything more about it until he gets the fucking report. He locks himself in a room with the research, and that’s it. He doesn’t want anything more, not the hunt, and sure as hell not me.” Dean froze.

Benny reckoned it was more complicated than that. Dean had gone to hell, but he’d done it knowing he was trying to save his brother. Sam had learned that his whole life had been one long dress rehearsal for having Satan climb up into him and destroy the world. Benny figured that would be enough to make a man want to avoid any repeats of that. But Dean wasn’t in a mood to hear anything, so he waited.

“If I’m not… What do I have to offer him if not hunting?” Dean asked, and he sounded so lost that Benny couldn’t stand by. He bent down and ducked under the top rail before going to Dean’s side and resting a hand on his back.

“He doesn’t want that life because of what Lucifer’s done to him, not because of anything you have or haven’t done. You can still offer him your support.”

“My support to not hunt.” Dean said the words so weakly that it was pretty clear he didn’t want that to be the right answer.

“My pappy, my human pappy… he wanted me to be a priest,” Benny said. “He had this whole life planned for me. He put an awful lot of energy into teaching me reading and writing when there weren’t too many folks down here who could. Mostly folk died young and their bodies kept the gaters happy. But my pappy… he had all these plans.”

“That didn’t involve you being a vampire or a slayer,” Dean finished for him.

“I had to make my own way, and my daddy’s plans weren’t right for me. Now, I coulda gone and struggled real hard to make myself fit into that life, if I’d loved him enough to do that. Sadly, I didn’t. My human pappy wasn’t the nicest of men, so I wasn’t all that tempted to make the sacrifice.”

Dean looked over. “You think Sam’s sacrificing for me?”

“I think he’s trying real hard to be the brother you want. You said he walked away clean… twice now. But this time around, he’s still researching all these beasties because he still wants part of your life. He loves you that much.”

Dean pressed his eyes closed. “I don’t want him to do it for me.”

“I know, brother.”

“I just… It’s who we are.”

“It’s who you are, Dean.”

Dean pressed his eyes closed so tightly that wrinkles gathered at the edges. “What am I supposed to do? Walk away? Tell him I never want him to hunt again? Because that would be a lie.”

“I know.”

Dean turned and gave Benny and anguished look. “How am I supposed to fix this?”

Benny held his empty hands out. “I ain’t got answers, cher. You know I’m here for you if you need, but I don’t know what to tell you about any of this.”

“You’re here. Right.” Dean gave a rough laugh. “The sad thing is that I’m jealous of Lizzy.”

“Lizzy? Why?” That did seem to be a bit of a detour.

“Because she has someone. I’ve seen Dorsey and Willow work. Dorsey may be the slayer, but Willow… she’s not all human, either, is she? The doctors keep trying to pin it down, but all they know is that she heals faster and produces more blood and runs a little faster and is getting stronger every day. She’s the other part of him. And that’s what Lizzy has. She’s part of something.”

“You want to be my other half?” Benny asked. That shocked him. True, he’d seen Dean at his worst in purgatory and knew what it meant to curl around the other man, to live and sleep so close together they felt like one person, but Dean was right that Lizzy and Willow weren’t all human anymore. He’d always figured Dean for the sort to hang onto his humanity.

“Not an option,” Dean said.

Benny curled his fingers around Dean’s arm. “Me and Lizzy… she’s like a daughter to me, Dean. There’s room for you. However you want this to work, there’s room for you.”

Dean shook his head. “It’s stupid. I’m just having a bad day.” Dean grinned, and suddenly all that pain and loneliness vanished under his smile.

Benny couldn’t stand to lose Dean to that smug imposter who would swagger around with all the pain poorly hidden inside. He pressed his fingers tightly into Dean’s arm. Letting his power unfurl, he watched Dean’s eyes as Dean felt the power invade him, seeking out the cracks in Dean’s defenses. “I call ‘em guides, Dean. It’s hard to avoid listening when you have a guide telling you you’re wrong. They have a power. But just because Lizzy’s one don’t mean I couldn’t use some help out on the road. You have a place with me, and I ain’t talking about for the night.”

Benny felt Dean’s shock, and that jostled his defenses enough that Benny set an anchor into him. “If you walk away, I’m going to respect that. But if you want to come in, I know Lizzy’s going to welcome you. I know I would love to have you with me, brother.” Benny reached up and let his palm rest against Dean’s neck.

“Did you…” Dean took an uneven breath.

“I started it. You have to finish it or the connection fades. At least, I assume it does,” Benny said with a shrug. “Willow and Lizzy, they both set upon us so fast that neither me or Dorsey really had a chance to do more than either reject or accept their offer. I guess now that’s the choice you have.”

Benny turned and headed back upslope. Lizzy was standing on the porch now, and he could feel her curiosity through their bond. She’d known he was reaching out to someone, but then Lizzy usually did know more than Willow. Benny didn’t know if that was because Lizzy was pushier or because the other slayer was more of a closed off bastard.

“I felt that,” Lizzy admonished him.

“I know, cher.” Benny leaned close and offered her a kiss on the cheek. Behind him, he could feel Dean coming close, that connection between them burning brighter.

“He’s a good man,” Lizzy said.

“He’s family,” Benny said. In his world that’s all that mattered. He could feel the echo of that through the connection as Dean stepped up onto the porch.

“So, what’s for supper?” he asked, and he sounded nervous as a teenager who’d come a’calling.

“Nothing unless you get washed up,” Lizzy said, without mercy as usual. “Benny’ll show you the washroom, dinner in ten minutes, and if you track mud into my house, I will make you pick it up with tweezers.”

Clearly Dean didn’t have much of a problem being threatened by a woman, because he offered a quick, “Yes, ma’am,” before he sat down and started unlacing his boots. Benny watched as Dean hurried to get them off.

When Dean stood, Benny held the door open for him and said, “Washroom’s on the right,”

Dean nodded and headed inside while carrying those dirty boots.

For a second, Benny looked out into the blue-black night. “I got ‘em, Pappy. Don’t you be worrying none.”

 

Xander sucked in a breath as he sat up in bed.

“Pet?” Spike pushed himself up onto an elbow and groaned. “Bloody hell. We only just got to sleep.”

“We would have gotten to sleep earlier if you weren’t such a sex fiend,” Xander pointed out as he poked his memories of Benny. Dorsey was stirring, coming half-awake as Xander pushed the memories toward him. General O’Neill needed to know that Dean’s situation had changed a bit. And if he did one thing to make Benny unhappy, Xander was going back to that universe and kicking Air Force ass.

Dorsey chuckled and sent a reassuring thought back through the connection.

Spike turned on the lamp next to the bed and propped himself up on an elbow. “What happened?”

“Dean found his way back to Benny,” Xander said.

“He okay?”

“Emotionally, not really.”

“Pet, he hasn’t been emotionally okay in a long time. Did Benny take him in?”

Xander nodded. “Took him as a second guide.”

“Then he’ll be fine.” Spike reached over and turned the light back off. “Now go to sleep. You’re a bloody mother hen, Harris.”

Xander lay back down. “Look who’s talking.”

“I never clucked over my minions like you do.” Spike wrapped an arm around Xander’s waist and pulled him close.

“All your minion children are dead,” Xander pointed out. After creating Dorsey and Benny, he couldn’t imagine ever letting either of them die. He wondered if Eve felt that same sort of desperate hope for him or if she was more like Spike—reproducing without a second thought about where her children ended up. She talked a good game about love, but that didn’t mean she felt it.

“Exactly,” Spike said in a sleep voice. “They’re dead and not interfering with my night’s sleep.”

“That is why you’re not allowed to have children.”

“No, I don’t have children because I have my hands full with you. Now shut your gob before I go find your gag.” Spike’s threat might have sounded more threat like if he didn’t kiss a gentle trail down the side of Xander’s neck.

“The cuffs are in the drawer,” Xander suggested hopefully.

Spike’s kisses vanished. “Now that’s worth losing some sleep over.” In a flash, Xander found himself pinned on his stomach. “I’m going to bugger you good, pet,” Spike threatened as he locked the first cuff around Xander’s wrist. Either Spike was getting way faster or he had the cuffs out before Xander had asked.

“Blah, blah, threat, threat, blah,” Xander said dismissively.

“Oh luv, you’re paying for that,” Spike said, but before Xander could antagonize him anymore, Spike’s fangs sunk deep into Xander’s shoulder, and heat seared him. Xander cried out in pleasure. Children later. Sex now.


End file.
